By Sara Etgen-Baker, member-at-large

(a haibun*)

I opened the sewing basket, letting my eyes and hands run over the tools she had used — the scissors, the darning egg, the pins and pincushion, and spools of thread. I gazed at the metal spool-shaped bobbins remembering how, as a small child, I flushed them down the toilet creating quite a ruckus. I fingered the thimbles, recalling her numb fingers and hands. Despite her diminishing eyesight, she quilted until her last day, painstakingly feeling the fabric, cutting the shapes, and hand stitching the pieces together silently suffering from the pricks and misery her needle sometimes inflicted. When tiny drops of blood dripped from her fingers, nary a tear emerged from her eyes.

I closed the basket and walked through her sewing room, silence enveloping it. The faceless dress form patiently waits for her return, an unfinished garment draped over its shoulders. The sewing machine sits idle, its motor no longer whirring and the needle no longer punching through the fabric with its steady, rhythmic chuka, chuka, chuka sound.

echoes pierce silence.

the sound of mother’s spirit

I know in my heart.

*The haibun is prose (or a prose poem) interleaved with one or more haiku. The prose is not an explanation of the haiku. The haiku is not a linear continuation of the prose. The prose text is limited to 20-to-180 words. Most commonly, only one haiku is included, placed after the prose and serving as a climax or epiphany to what came before. The juxtaposition of prose and haiku is important. The prose should add depth with which one experiences the haiku. The haiku should add meaning to the prose. The classic haiku is a Japanese form of poetry with three lines. The first line has five syllables; the second has seven; and the last has five (known as the 5-7-5 rule).