Celebrating Women’s Voices

I hope you can join me to hear women’s stories through the voices of these writers in March.

And a poem from Stories We Didn’t Tell

MY MOTHER’S HANDS

Chugwater, Wyoming, 1923
Adella, age 66

Fingers curled, knuckles swollen with arthritis,
her head encircled by lamplight, I see my mother
bent over her hands, embroidering flowers
on tablecloths, then rubbing at the pain,
though there was little she had to relieve
the aching tenderness that came
from work she did all day
for years
as she milked and mended,
hauled water, and lugged hay.

Despite the hurt, she kept her hands moving,
shaping and reshaping her world, not deterred
by the pain, handing on what she could to me.

When young, I didn’t comprehend her aches—
how age alters a woman. Old now, I notice joints
that ache when moved, the hidden places
worn enough for tenderness to emerge.

When Jasper died, the life I lived died too.
Married now to Joel, a blacksmith, I’ve entered
a different world. Things break, and Joel
remakes and fixes them. Taking damaged saws
and wagon wheels, worn out horseshoes,
ruined tools, he heats the metal from dark carnelian
to opal white, and then strikes the steel over
and over, sparks flying as he reshapes
with his hammer. Form renewed,
he quenches it with water.
Restoration can be brutal.

I’m not a blacksmith but know something
about hammers. I’ve given birth nine times,
had two children and a husband die, known drought,
hunger and ongoing uncertainty—so many
unanticipated ways things wear down
before they fall apart.

It’s true, Joel drinks. Some may say that’s a fault,
but I’ve given him my hand in marriage, worn as it is.
He knows about broken things and tenderness.

Hearts and habits stiff as iron can be melted, renewed
when there’s someone who knows how to mend them.