For Ethical ELA’s Open Write today, host Jennifer Guyor Jowett states this purpose: “We are going to tug at your memories, perhaps even look for a way to express that which is hidden.”

Jennifer goes on to share how Emma Parker, a textile and mixed-media artist from the UK, inspired her own poem: Emma Parker’s themes are “often around the broken, the abandoned, and the forgotten.” She explains that thread and cloth hold the metaphors of mending, repairing, and connecting and becomes interested in the stories the materials hold and who has touched them before.

Before I could even finish reading the rest of Jennifer’s intro and prompt, my mind was spiraling in countless directions. First, writing about memories. My favorite kind of writing. Second, themes of “the broken, abandoned, forgotten.” So much to say about that. Then the whole bit about fabric and cloth, mending and repairing… my mother was a seamstress. An image from my earliest days immediately came to mind for a poem, but the ideas do not stop there, no, not at all.

To be honest, I’ve spent much time thinking on the broken parts of life and generations of brokenness. Some people overcome while others are never able. So many stories in my own family and in my husband’s. I keep picking up the pieces in my mind, marveling at the incredible beauty of some, mourning over the ones beyond repair. Someday, someday…I will see what written mosaic I can make of these. Perhaps.

But for now, a poem with the first image that came to mind:

Silky String

Who
gave me
the blanket
trimmed with satin?
Someone receiving
a new baby to hold.
Did this someone ever know
that my sweet blanket, white as snow,
would become my babyhood lifeline
even as it all disintegrated?

-the blanket, that is, from too much loving.
Over time the satin pulled away
and someone (who?) tied it in knots
to keep it from being lost.
Priceless, my silky string,
for rubbing across
my nose, thumb in
mouth…soothing
me to
sleep.

Note: I didn’t plan to write a double (or reverse) etheree. After the first two lines, the form took charge. Jennifer, the Open Write host, called it “an in and out etheree,” like a blanket unfolding and fading away.

AI-generated image. Took a few tries to get this. Some of the results were haunting. But so is reality, sometimes.