THE MOURNING OF THE LOSS OF TOWELS
Not a willing early riser, prone to steal extra minutes slipping further under the covers with just a nose to catch the air.
Sometimes I slip deeper, unintentional really, back to a dream that had me entertained before the clock bellows with morning voices and then later the second beep and finally the 3rd alarm stationed in the bathroom making me pull out of a dream a bitter end to a delicious sleep.
Occasionally morning calls to me and I wait in the dark, cold air. I can make out the last of the deer scurrying off into the deep woods, pausing once to look at me the lone watcher on the stone balcony.
Here is the moment when the night sounds die off and the silence is deep and the sky is still black. And then the slow roll of night back over my head as the morning begins her ascension over the horizon even before she crests the birds begin to sing a chorus of the song that builds like the dawn and with the first break of day, the shimmer of light cascades down the mountain to the river and finally lights my perch.
I am reminded of lost things. The towels my mother taught me to fold, not like my aunt- she would have none of that.
First is one fold to the middle and the second fold over that smooth it out, fold the towel in half and in half again. After all these years,
I still fold towels the same way.
But it is my mother’s towels, the ones we folded together,
I miss the most. Their frayed edges with soft middles, the way they wrapped me. And her hands, worn even then, her furrowed brow, brown hair and the faint smell of gardenia that clung to her.
Then I learned about loss and sorrow still to come.
Mourning the loss of towels,
I slip deeper under the covers to grasp one last dream.
Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2022
Creative Vagabond: Read this first.