The softness of your skin is the feather of my flight, Mother.

Recently, I've been posting on Facebook a few poems written to my mother on her 80th birthday in 2009. She transitioned in April of 2010 and I am working on these poems, loving them, and her. A few people requested to read more of these poems, so I thought I'd place them here and with it various photos of my mother. I hope you enjoy them. Te amo.

From the Womb to Womanhood

Poems for Nancy Lee Powell Hastings

by Sheela Doreen Hastings Wolford.

You’ll be the Belle of the Ball” she says to me,

 and I want to dance with her, to take her with me,

searching for the invitation we are trying to find.

Me at nine, Lake Huron, Greenbush, Michigan, 1964.

Maybe you see Lake Hastings

when the ground’s hard as a pecan shell

spilling onto the lawn,

Hamburger Helper bubbles in the pan

steak tomorrow

Chicken Chip casserole, too

Watch for the drivers headed home,

tires lost in Beach Boy waves

plates prepared for the fertile land

called dinner.

We lived on Commissary food. My father would stand at the conveyor
belt and gasp, "What is that? Huh?" and on as he witnessed the
food we'd slipped onto the belt. He never removed it. El Paso, Texas, 1970.

Routine

can be

a

dance.

My mother and I probably on a Sunday afternoon,
me talking her ear off, her being productive and
with worries all her own. El Paso, Texas, 1968.

"Be a lady and don’t scream” she tells me before

I give birth, and I remember

while horizontal that clouds of doubt cannot form,

so I hold to this message, as

my first girl is born.

I will tell her the same as well as her sister

and they will tell their babies, too,

for screaming begets screaming

and the loss of power enrages the push.

The birth of Leila Sandra Wolford, El Paso, Texas, 1984.

When she reaches for the emeralds

of her thoughts, she will swim into an ocean of

diamonds, as liquid as the sun,

a back stroke across a turquoise sky

she will laugh when the crown slips below her eyes,

moving faster, she knows more

jewels are ahead.

My mother (right) in France where my father was stationed;
she must have been 22, 1952.

There is a bedroom in my father’s house

made for Nancy,

the walls are of Moab stone

flooring is El Paso tile

her bed a sleigh pulled by huskies

the Northern lights through her window,

she builds a fire only she can create.

Living in Moab with her folks while waiting to ship off to Germany with my father, 1951.

This quilt that is us

is sewn with the suede of your suit,

the leather of Dad’s Harley,

oil of Steve’s art, lens of James,

pottery of Sandy, and pen of me

stitching, stitching, stitching

we sleep with this quilt

and the dreams never end.

She always was thinking up the next great Christmas card.
This year, 1972, was one of our happiest. El Paso, Texas.

October women

let pumpkin drip from their lips

and align their vision to the amber

glow no one else can see.

October women

wear candy corn as rings

and sew costumes minus thread.

My grandmother, Mildred (background) and my
mother, Nancy, (foreground) and I are all born in October.

The wall threatens to keep us apart

but Mother

I will bring the shovel and you will show

me where to place it

and we will push until the Earth softens

to our ache.

My mother on the far left, I'm next to her, cousin Sheri next to
me, my sister, Sandy beside her, and James, my brother far right.
Dad must have taken us all to his favorite Chinese restaurant,
El Paso, Texas, Summer 1972.

Remember when the rubber plant you brought home from the office

to transplant into a bigger pot broke in half in your hands?

The roots still deep in the soil, I wish that had been my first miracle to you, melting them back together again. My Humpty Dumpty solution to your loss.

She could type 165 wpm. The woman could have run the world and was
taking night classes for a business degree before the tumor emerged.
El Paso, Texas, circa 1970.

When you were in the coma

I stared at trees

and hated to love them.

My father made sure he raised his family in nature so we were
pulled off military bases fast. I have grown to love staring at trees
and clouds.  Here is our humble home on the shore of Lake Huron
in Michigan where we lived off and on until 1965.

The river runs muddy and she will not cross it.

The river runs muddy and she will not cross it.

She wants to meet her grand babies and have

one more dance with Nat King Cole.

A few years after surgery to remove a benign tumor under her skull went wrong
and my mother was left  in a coma for ten days and when she emerged was paralyzed
on her left side, speech impaired, and legally blind. My father
would live only 13 years more. El Paso, Texas, 1985.

What were you like as a girl, Mother?

Did you play with dolls, dig in the dirt, climb trees, eat ice cream,

sing songs, dance alone, kiss the mirror?

Did you dream of being an adult? Did you wonder which way to go?

Who held you up, who hugged you, wiped your tears when you cried?

Who was there before me, Mother? How did you survive?

What did you do when the water broke and you became a blue baby?

Do you remember? Does it still frighten you? Can I fix you something to eat, drink, sing you a lullaby? Rock you to sleep? What can I do, dear Mother, to fill you up again, bathe you in warm water, let you know dryness can be made wet?

Location and country unknown to me, probably France, circa 1952.

Diamond wood

paint by numbers

fired ceramics

Christmas stocking

let the garments you made cut my arms

nothing will feel better.

Make something, Mother,

so that I may hold it forever.

The Diamond wood lamp she made when we lived out in the open land and forests of Fairbanks, Alaska.My mother was uber talented and the 1950s such a goofy time for a woman to be alive.I ask her to guide my hand and skill. I have much to do in her honor, in women's worth across the board. Her family in Greenbush, Michigan, 1962.

 
Sheela Wolford is a scrappy enthusiast who knows her purpose is to encourage. A writer, starry-eyed mother, good daughter, and better sister, she is working on a grief journal, a book of poetry, a memoir about her mother and her, and a book about the years she spent in brown adidas shoes, figuring out her life. Like her on Facebook on Workshops by Wolford.