Sweet Omega

I wrote this piece in honor of my grandmother,  a kind, sweet soul, long departed, but never forgotten. She lived and died in the mountains of North Carolina, as did her parents, her grandparents before her and their parents and grandparents and so on and so on. The land she lived on during her lifetime was acquired generations before her birth by her family from the State of North Carolina who had "acquired" it from the Cherokee Nation. Her son and grandsons live on that same land today.  Her name was Omega, the last of five girls, and her simple, yet lovely, ways of living her life are as much a part of my fiber as the earth beneath my feet:

Sweet Omega, I carry your memory with me.

Milk jugs for blackberry picking; fabric scraps for quilting; front porch sitting; canning, cooking and old time religion.

Cathead biscuits; Cast Iron cornbread and buttermilk; the sweetness of sorghum syrup.

I carry you with me.

Mountain air; mountain laurel; and mountain people.

Leaves changing; fog lifting; sun shining. 

I carry you with me.

Snow globes; Christmas carvings; cloves and oranges.

Faded photographs; flowers pressed in a family Bible; he loves me-he loves me not.

Softly and tenderly, I go, carrying memories of you with me.

October, 2008