Friday, May 12, 2017

To A Glorious Girl

"Glorious Girl" by Mimi Deitrich
Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure and visit beautiful Tara at A Teaching Life for Roundup!

Once again, this Friday has me traveling. But it's all good -- I am talking about many of the things I love: books and quilts and writing and history and family... I'm grateful to be invited to share these things with groups of all ages.

Tomorrow I will be in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, sharing with a quilt group and also signing at Ernest and Hadley Books. Roll Tide! (says the Auburn fan. :)

Mimi & her quilt (and my poem)
Today I'm delighted to share with you another happy National Poetry Month event. Thank you, Laura Shovan, for sharing with me about the Blossoms of Hope exhibit at the Columbia Art Center, which displayed, during the month of April, artworks and poems inspired by them.

I selected a quilt, of course! "Glorious Girl" by Mimi Deitrich (pictured above). Not only do I love the colors in the quilt, the quilting, but it also contains a line from THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. I knew instantly that's what I wanted to write about! (Thank you, Laura, for sharing the pictures from the opening reception with me!) And here is my poem:

To a Glorious Girl

Girl, just look at your glorious
brown-black-pink-tan-pale-freckled-red skin,
your smile your teeth
your hands your knees –

the way you think
the way you speak

and all the things you do –
No one else in the world
is exactly like you,
glorious you!

Sometimes it may seem
like the world is growing colder.
Hold tight, glorious girl,
tomorrow will be better.

And when you say to your best friend,
you can do it; I'll be right beside you,

turn around and say those same words
to those glorious eyes ears chin
wrapped in that glorious
brown-black-pink-tan-pale-freckled-red skin

you see in the mirror.

- Irene Latham

And to all you mother's out there: Happy Mother's Day!



14 comments:

  1. Love the way you use the quilt and describe the skin. I feel part of your poem. That is magic. We girls need to read more poems like this one. And fewer magazines telling us how to be size zero and please our ______. Happy Mother's Day! Long may your light shine on us.

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  2. Your poem fits for Tabata's post today, Irene, and for Mother's Day, too. Celebrating all the "Glorious Girls" this time of year is a good thing to do.

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  3. How beautiful.

    "Sometimes it may seem
    like the world is growing colder.
    Hold tight, glorious girl,
    tomorrow will be better."

    This sounds absolutely like something my mother would say to me - she still calls me her little girl, even at 33 years of age. :)

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  4. What a glorious poem for all the glorious girls out there! Your poem makes me remember and celebrate my daughter in so many ways as she is setting out on her own adventures now.

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  5. What an empowering poem you've stitched together from all that is wonderful, you glorious girl!

    It's a little different to the adorable Adélie poem of yours that I'm sharing on my blog today. #sweetlove

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  6. Oh, how I love this poem. I want to print it out for each of my girl students to take home in their summer writing journals.

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  7. There's power here, Irene! Happy Mother's Day to you too. :)

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  8. In these days of cyber bullying where even innocent friendship is tainted with online insecurity, gossip and jealousy, girls sure need to hear something like this! Beautiful and empowering!

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  9. This is beautiful. So much to love.

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  10. I love your poem Irene, it's speaks to everyone, and just one, and all glorious girls. I like the visual images in it too! Happy Mother's Day!

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  11. Wonderful message for those glorious girls out there! Quilting fascinates me, although I do not do it myself. Have you read Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway? Wonderful quilting theme woven into the fabric of that story. -- Christie @ https://wonderingandwondering.wordpress.com/blog/

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  12. Cool that you participated in the Blossoms of Hope exhibit (and with a quilt, no less)! Laura inspired me to do it, too. It was a fun challenge. Happy Mother's Day! xo

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  13. These words, this affirmation is what the world needs now. I love the word glorious--I need to connect this word with Keisha's prompt. Thank you, Irene

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Your thoughts?