Old Woman Knitting

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I look out the back door of my long and storied memory
and I see an old woman bent knitting on a porch
in a rocker in the fall when the heat has given up and
the first cool breeze is offering solace from the summer,

a solace she accepts and sets her knitting in her lap
and looks down into the pines which have arranged
themselves in pleasing slopes in the distant blue-gray
well beyond the grazing cows and lazy chickens.

She reaches for the arm of the hidden chair beside her
covered with a quilt of pale squares in blue and white
a pair of thick spectacles folded on the seat
a corncob pipe on the table in between

half-burnt tobacco spilled across the weathered tile
gathering along the edge of a tattered gray journal.
As she lightly pats the arm of the absented chair
I can see in her eyes the descriptions on her tongue

the stories of the pines at the base of the creek
the news of the bull and of his favorite heifers
a comment on the relief of the cool breath of air—
and suddenly she stops, and she smiles a small smile

beneath the hard lines of her face
one movement of one line around her weary mouth
to acknowledge understanding
to impart her gratitude.

And in her rocker on the porch above her vast backyard
she picks up her knitting, bows her head, and fades away
into the landscape like a pine tree with a secret
away into the darkness of the shut door of my mind.

ATOMS by Vidha Saumya