To be uprooted is to be pulled from the place where you thought you were planted. Where you’d allowed yourself to anchor a taproot deep into the earth. That was me. After 30 years in a house I loved, I was forced to leave due to my partner’s unexpected layoff. Facing the loss of that home felt like losing a part of myself. As I struggled to come to terms with the relocation, I drew strength from other challenges I’d survived. Childhood, motherhood, relationships, death, and the search for identity. A selection of these poems will be published in the Fall Issue of BlazeVOX26 Journal.

The Traveler’s Blanket

I sit amidst a rainbow of cloth, uncertain where to begin.

Fingertips rub fabric’s warp and weft.

Mind carries memories like a crayon box,
some dull,
others sharp.

The ‘For Sale’ sign in front of house is a prism,
one instant,
a facet intensifying the colors,
the next,
a drain that strips the land of pigmentation.

I leave under protest.
No, that’s not quite right.

I leave with acceptance.
No, not that either.

I leave because there is no choice.

Protest, acceptance, denial, regret.
None of that matters.

But before I go,
I seek story’s core
to embed in a traveler’s blanket.
I will stitch a cloak to wrap around trembling shoulders,
to keep myself from splintering into an exodus of light.
A shroud.
I will wrap the shawl of stoicism around my body
As I rip up deep roots of connection buried in this land.

Hands hover over square of crimson.
Deep red.
Not red-hot like fire, but vivid like love.

Daughter devotion.
Art avocation.
Garden veneration.
Passion.

Red is quilt’s center.
Red breast of robin.
Home fires burning.

Deep purple crackles under fingers.
Dramatic design demands contrast—lightest of lights to darkest of darks.
Rectangle of nightmares,
thunderstorms,
bruised hearts.

Green is survival.
Green like the maple tree with tire swing,
like carpet of grass cut a thousand times,
like color of this house painted the season after husband died.
Soothing, calming, growing.
Hope.
Chartreuse and pine call.
Emerald and fern answer.

Blue, color of family eyes,
lapis-blue first-born eyes,
mirror of my own.
Blue-grey second-born eyes,
so like her father’s.
Hyacinth, larkspur, and morning glory
delicate seasonal shifting of shades.

Dynamic red, powerful purple, optimistic green, calming blue.
Counterpoints to colors of fire engines, stop signs, hazard tape.
Adjust cool strips to accommodate life’s heat.

Don’t overthink.
Accept.

Squares.
Rectangles.
Arrange.
Rearrange.
I pursue the perfect pattern for unexpressed emotions.
Log Cabin quilt design embodies home.
Strips of light color,
brightened by sun,
darker strips,
shadowed contrast.
All encircling center hearth of flame.

Vintage motif honors old house.
Life vessel for thirty years.

I will stitch together braided tales of the past while recollections are fresh.

Mind carries memories like a Chinese box,
one story nested within another,
within another,
within another.