Little House in the Big Thicket

A yellow light glowed from the window framed in lace

curtains, as smoke snaked from the chimney to the tall pines

surrounding the little house in the thicket. There was only a

quilting frame, two wooden chairs and a Bible in the living

room where Ms. Dickens and Ms. Danell spent their days.

The two old women discussed their husbands, their

children, the weather and the crops, while creating

quilts with hundreds of teeny tiny stiches, piece by piece.

They stitched year in and year out, through wars, thirteen

presidents and women achieving the right to vote.

Quilts from scraps of red and yellow flowers formed

the base, while triangles of small floral prints and solid

colors created the triangle within squares pattern.

Scraps from dresses, shirts, coats and pants made

for husbands and children to wear long ago.

A labor of love, made with gnarled hands that kneaded

dough, rocked babies to sleep and stirred soup pots.

Quilts that now grace the beds and walls of relatives,

who never saw the little house in the Big Thicket, or

the women, who now live only in each teeny tiny stitch.

Selected as Juried Poet Houston Poetry Festival 2011 and printed in anthology