I Walk Through Webs of Memory

I walk through webs as I rise into morning.

Each strand a dream remembered,

not remembered. The threads broken;

I have lost all but the emotional residue

which I carry with me into day.

Some mornings feel this way. Some mornings I literally walk through silken threads spun overnight by industrious spiders. Invisible strands stretch from hedges to vehicles. I break through and quickly brush those strands from my arms, hoping there wasn’t a spider attached.

The weaver and I have had an interesting relationship over the years. I am both repulsed and captivated by these intelligent creatures. They remind me to weave and not get caught in my own web. They remind me to give voice to the world in what I create. They are expression and expressor just as we all are.

I weave memories and dreams into poetry in order to capture something of those moments. I spin words into gifts. And once I gave some of them to my mother.

About a year or so be she died, I sent her some poems. Poems of memories. Poems that spoke to her in a way I couldn’t. She didn’t say much, but I understand. There’s too much to say, and so I spoke through my poems and she listened. Together we met in a way we never did before.

My mother has become memory and dream and I rise into the past at times so I don’t forget. I weave and I weave hoping to capture something of what was.

And then the thread breaks and the moment floats off, carried by time as the present takes back its place.

Last month my brother saw a sparrow at his window every morning for about a week. It peered in at him as the sun rose. He wondered if it was Mom checking in on him. And then it stopped coming. And then a sparrow landed outside my window every day for a few days, and I wondered.

In those moments of wonder she lives, everything lives. The past and present woven together capture us, and we know what is true. Finally, we know.