Sampler On the Parlor Wall
Picture on the Parlor Wall 9-27-24
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Sampler on the Parlor Wall
Shadows born from dawdling light
Stretch across a firelit room set with porcelain cups,
From tea parties long ago and faraway,
With an invitation to sample sweets and savories
Like the sampler on the parlor wall.
Beneath neat rows of alphabets stories gather,
Verses stitched with silk and dreams
And numbers that taught a woman’s craft –
A child’s wishes fly with birds and lady bugs –
Wishes to convince a suitor at the door of her wifely worth
In tidy stitches foreshadowing an orderly life.
A young lady-girl in pantaloons and blue sashes
Weaves circles of symphonic dots in French wheels
While lazy daisy chains meander on her linen fields -
Magic flares in her zigzag lines, her wishes on wooly stars.
No signature remains from her little hand -
Her hearth, her home, her heart –
Only a legacy of butterflies and roses sampled on a parlor wall
And a tiny scarlet dot of imperfection like a signature remains
Embroidered into a sampler embracing each dawn and dusk.
Copyright © Sam Kauffman | Year Posted 2024
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