Watching felt dry

Watching felt dry

I remember the steep sloped side of that Hunterdon hill of spring-green grass, the mowers at work, ewes and soft babes, bleating, chomping, dark hoofs shuffling slow steps across the small hillside in spring.

Mrs. Schroth would invite my mother in, would tell me I could run up the hill out back, the steep sloped small hill of bleating, chomping ewes and soft babes. Larger up close. Bleating, chomping.

With grass-sprinkled cream faces, they turned to me. I hadn’t begun school yet, didn’t climb over the fence, stood on the low post, gripping the next post at my neck, my chin resting on the post, seeing smelling smiling at woolies working in spring.

I hoped one lamb would kick hooves and run, as I’d seen before. And one did. And another. The mothers didn’t mind, chomping, chomping. Lambs didn’t run toward me. Always away.

Today I’m wooly. Working with wool roving – sheared sheep hairs. Processed, dyed, yet not yarn, a soft lanolin clothing remade from sheep, from animals I’ll never know. I pulled wool ribbons of pale orange, pale yellow, oatmeal, laid the softness down cross ways.

Plopped a small stone in the center. I had lettered on it: Joy. The wool strips wrapped ‘round the smooth hard gray. I plunged this in soaped water. Like my Sicilian-born mother-in-law turns dough into bread, I patted it back and forth from hand to hand.

I watch my felted stone sitting in afternoon sun. It will fly through the sky to a friend four hundred miles away who’s had to relearn walking. And during May I will pick other stones, more wool ribbons, thinking kindly of ewes and babes, bleating, chomping, kicking up heels on Mrs. Schroth’s Hunterdon hill.

*****

Friends, I’m happy to return to #PoetryFriday goodness with a fresh d r a f t poem of this last April Tuesday, for an always-in-the-making memories chapbook.  Via a cosy virtual workshop with an artist who is also a trained art therapist for folks with a similar but not exactly the same health condition/diagnosis [you don’t want mine- kidney cancer!] I learned felting today. AND, a sweet lost memory from child days arrived, bringing me flow.

We can kick up our heels with this week’s line leader , BuffySilverman on the 1^st #PoetryFriday in May, the 3rd. [her groovy link below.] See where May days will take us & also, where we’ve been in Poetry Month, April. If you have time to leave a comment & you think it may turn out that you are Anon. it would make me happy if you’ll eave your name within your comment. Appreciations. Thank you creative Buffy, for hosting.

May
3 BUFFY at Buffy Silverman

10 Linda at A Word Edgewise
17 Patricia at Reverie
24 Michelle at MoreArt4All
31 Janice at Salt City Verse

April 2024 #PoetryFriday
5 Irene at Live Your Poem
12. Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
19 Heidi at my juicy little universe
26 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town