Sitting Room

Sitting Room

Every winter morning
just after ten she emerges
from the chamber and makes
straightaway for the rocker
in the sitting room with the
bay window that once held
brightly colored cushions.

Children were hushed to sleep
just there by the back and forth
of a mother’s toe, bruises were healed,
scraped elbows kissed well and tears
wiped away with smooth hands
but now she sits.

To watch the snow fall through some
blue tears of her own, to wrinkle the
brow over one eye in search of the
now missing flakes, to count the titmice
though they won’t stay still in the
flurry of aggravated cardinals huffing
like indignant clerics.

There’s an afghan or three laid out
for the errant draft, slippers so worn
down that they have no date and a
small fire that doubtlessly Emily laid
before breakfast with more dry sticks
from the back porch.

Its no view but a sort of bright life seen
best from a rocker with two blind eyes,
two keen ears and the sweet silent sound
of sitting.

Wendell M. Tomlin, Jr.

Mr. Tomlin lives in the south. He is a graduate of Duke University and an excellent wordsmith of verse and descriptive non-fiction.

- The Legendary