Consider my mother gazing out her window over the kitchen sink as she washes breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes for fifty-some years. The seasons infinitesimally change what she sees, so that January blizzards and August heat waves try to teach her how the world is never the same one blink of the eye to the next. But if my mother were alive now she’d say her life--teenage bride to widow in her seventies-- in that house never varied. In my house I’m six years into these French windows through which I contemplate a back yard the size of half a tennis court. Now it’s grey as London fog, but later blue sky and charming sunlight will shine as the nurse settles baby me in my mother’s arms, before evening’s dark sifts down over her grave and mine.
David Huddle’s many books include My Surly Heart (LSU, 2019).
Copyright 2020 David Huddle