Adopt a Grandmother

Grandmother, brother Peter and me at the Catskill Game Farm

Mine wasn't, she was more

and less than the stereotypical

soft-cheeked woman with cookies

on sitcoms and in commercials.

She worked for one thing—as art teacher—

in three elementary schools using a cart

and her car as storage and desk

with her dining room table as an extension.

She hired me to sew hems, polish

piano legs and dust photographs

in the vast Victorian she owned

and lived alone in, unafraid.

She wasn't a mother either, but more

and less than mine whose job was us children

while super grandmother gardened, painted,

commanded and drove us, sometimes crazy.

Away from home, I adopted grandmothers—

old women with public and private strength—

witches in another time and place with 
magic names as mentors and models.

Like Mary Hunter Wolf who led improv

workshops through her very own American

Shakespeare Theatre—now defunct.  Think of it:

Mary, Hunter and Wolf power and faith!

Like Ellen Stewart, the mama of LaMaMa

Experimental Theatre Club, the Mama

of Off-Off Broadway, the champion of

international diversity on stage.

Shall I name all my grandmothers—Marys

and Ellens, Bernices, Sojourners and

radicals?  Or just tell you how—though alone

and childless—I am ready to be one?

Posted for my prompt Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Honoring Woman/Women's Achievements.  This is a work in progress.

Copyright © 2014  S.L.Chast