April 20 Hand Made

Most everywhere my eye lands
Most rooms in my house
I see something someone’s hands
Made that makes me smile.

My daughter’s high school
Art class stained glass, Mia’s
Yin Yang in pinks and blues.
Joan’s quilts for every season

Riotous Amish geometries, & the Pen &
Ink drawings from other homes,
Scottish Highland trees on the slant,
Paths walked alone and with others

My father’s stone cairn sculptures
Dan’s dad’s carved spoons,
Diane’s lithograph broadsides
Mark’s painting, Patricia’s photographs

Peopled with strangers, sunlight
Stringed instruments –every made thing: our
Mobiles, our paper cranes, our soup
Bowls, our coffee table, a loving expression

The maker who made it, here with me now:
LuAnne’s ink and vinegar-rust cards, her books
Laura’s bottle cap collage, dream landscapes
Dreaming into ideas from ethers, available material

Once we made a tree-branch installation
For Christmas, we never took down.

Felted hearts hang in those fragile maple tendrils
Like these words appearing on paper,
Here to stay for the time it takes to nod
with the joy such made things bring.