Women's Work - Dec 21 2023

 

Women's Work

Dec 21 2023



The greeting cards

were store bought

and conventional;

a Christmas wreath

and a corny rhyme

in gold embossed lettering.

Inexpensive

and sentimental

but still sincere.

This was women's work.

My mother,

the convener

connector

family historian,

would sit at the kitchen table

in a pool of light

and compose a personal message

one by one.

Her elegant script

and the green ink she favoured

left no doubt

as to whom it was from.

While we were all in bed

she did her best

to keep in touch.

I thought it clever

how she used a sponge to wet the stamps.

Was impressed

at her prodigious address book,

bursting with college friends

former neighbours

valued acquaintances,

distant relatives

we've never even met.

A life history,

shoe-horned into the margins

of the overflowing pages,

even entered in palimpsest

to keep it alphabetical.

The book looked over-stuffed,

with the worn edges

of some loose pages

sticking out the sides,

elastics holding it shut.

But no one sends cards anymore.

Remembers by heart

all the dates and occasions

that landmark a life.

Or even writes

in the neat schoolgirl cursive

she learned in school.

The lost art

of keeping in touch.

No Hallmark greetings.

No boxes

of old cards

in the back of a closet,

kept just because.

And no address books either.

But still

the women in our lives

who keep the memories alive,

the sun

at the centre

of family and friends.

And the men

who take them for granted.

Who would fly off

like orphaned planets

if it wasn't for them.

Who haven't the sense to give thanks

until after they're gone.