Behind the Poem

Woman Mending by Alyssa Silvester

Sometimes the story of how a poem was born is just as good as the poem itself. Today Alyssa tells us about the inspiration for Woman Mending.

Woman Mending

Sunday morning sun slices the mother’s
laundry room window, creates a prism of light
on the floor. She jumps into the luminous pool,
sunshine licking her bare feet. She plunges
sun-spotted hands into the dryer’s drum,
digging like a child at the beach.

The mother bathes in warmth of her family’s tangled 
mess of pajamas. Her finger slips
into the open mouth of her toddler’s sleepsack.
The mother’s explosion of laughter shocks 
her as she imagines her daughter’s escaped
foot wrestling with dolls and stuffies.

Forgotten crumbs of long past sandwiches wedge
into cracks of her wooden, farmhouse table
where the mother sits to stitch. 

Nearby, sunlight catches 
the green neck of yesterday’s half-drunk bottle 
of now sleeping champagne. 
The mother sets aside her sewing and tosses 
a raisin into the formerly sparkling lake.
She gasps when the liquid erupts
into tiny bubbles. “I read it in Real Simple,” 
she exclaims to her cat, “but can you believe
the magic?!” The feline flips over.

Isn’t this the mother’s mission -- to mend monotony?
Shatter darkness and jump into light,
surprise the world with laughter, 
resurrect the bubbles?

Sometimes I am a dancer while writing poetry -- lines and images flow directly from my brain to my fingers to my keyboard. Other times I am an explorer -- I uncover clues and hunt for images. And other times I am a scavenger -- I am hungry for words or inspiration and claw it together, the process can feel messy ... until it doesn’t.

“Woman Mending” was the last kind of writing, a strenuous (and fun) labor of love. A complex juggling of ideas. This ekphrastic poem (a poem based on a work of art) is inspired by Camille Pissarro’s painting Woman Mending as well as conversations with fellow writing friends.

One warm, cloudless day in Chicago -- the kind of day you tuck away to remember in January, when the sky screams blue and September sun seeps into your arm, your toes wiggle in glee to still be in sandals, and your hair absorbs sunshine before leaves paint themselves -- I was at the Art Institute of Chicago with a dozen other creatives. We had been writing on the internet together for a few years but had yet to meet in person. Tall ceilings could barely hold our excitement, and creative ideas bounced off the echoing tile. 

One painting caught my eye: “Woman Mending”. The woman in the painting was concentrating on her work at hand but not upset. Were her rosy cheeks and loose curls signs of running around with her children? Did she just finish a meal at her table? Where was the rest of her family? 

One of the women in our group stopped next to me and remarked “Women mend so many things.”

“They do,” I replied, still staring at the painting. “Hearts, lives, buttons.” Both the tangible and intangible, I thought.

“That would make a great poem,” she stated and kept walking. I agreed. I snapped a photo of the painting to continue to imagine the life behind this woman and connect her life to mine.

Woman Mending

Later that day, our group gathered for a cake and cocktail party. We witnessed one woman’s eyes and voice illuminate as she demonstrated the art of mixing a cocktail. We watched another woman (Amy Grass of Part-time Poets) glow as she decorated a cake that represented our weekend together. At the end of the evening, a half-drunk bottle of champagne sat abandoned on the dining room table next to candles half burnt in votives and lingering end-of-night conversations. We debated about how to preserve the bubbles. Seemingly from nowhere, I remembered an article I read in Real Simple about how to revive a flat glass of champagne -- throw a raisin in! I shared the tidbit, and we erupted into laughter.

“You should put that line in a poem,” a fellow writer challenged. She (Michelle Windsor of Part-time Poets) texted me the line later. 

I returned home with the challenge of writing an ekphrastic poem about a woman mending, Real Simple magazine, and flat champagne. I spent the next several days collecting lyrics and images. I paid attention to what I mended (or needed to mend). What did it feel like to do laundry? What is the light like in my house? I wrote phrases in the Notes app in my phone, in my journal, and on my computer.

Finally, it came to me -- my job was to find beauty, lightness, and joy in my mending.

Michelle Windsor, Amy Grass, Alyssa Silvester, and Krista Drechsel at the Exhale Retreat in. Chicago