Quilts & Pears & the Summer Poem Swap!

stained glass quilt by Bettye Kimbrell

Hello, and Happy Poetry Friday! I am adventuring today with my Camp Buttercup girls, but I did want to leave a few goodies for my Poetry Friday friends. :) Be sure to visit lovely Linda Kulp at Write Time for Roundup!

As many of you know, I love quilts. I've even created a few, though none so gorgeous as those picture here and made by Bettye Kimbrell, an Alabama quilt-artist whose work earned her a National Heritage Fellowship Award.  learned about Bettye at a recent quilt program presented by Alabama Folklife Association. Her work is so amazing, and she's self-taught! Here's one using a leaf pounding technique:

And here is a postcard piece of art created by Joy Acey, to whom I sent a poem as part of the Summer Poem Swap. (She sent me the postcard as a thank you.) Isn't it lovely?? I immediately started a "pear" poem. :) Thank YOU, Joy!!! You multi-talented poets inspire the heck out of me!

And here is another bit of loveliness I received that I haven't been able to stop thinking about, both picture and poem, from Diane Mayr:

photo by Russell Lee, courtesy of Library of Congress

On the Beach
by Diane Mayr

Not a body, I have no memory
of flesh -- but a thin, faded and
worn, cotton patchwork quilt

made me stop and gape.

I wanted to shake someone,
To yell, "What are you doing?"
How could you be so

careless as to bring family

history to the beach to
cradle your Coppertone
slicked sweating bodies?

Sand, salt, and the sun

will exact a toll on the
handiwork of your mother,
or grandmother, long-gone.

If only, I could finger

the yo-yos of the quilt that
once lay on her bed and say,
"Tell me, who made this?

And when. And where. And how?"

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Isn't that great?? How many times have I wanted the answers to those same questions... alas. Thank you, Diane, for putting it in a poem. I will treasure it. And thanks again and again to Tabatha for running the Swap! SO inspiring and FUN!