Happy Women’s Day!

Nonna Pauline

March 8th is La Festa della Donna (Women’s Day), a time to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions women have made to our community. In southern Italy, bouquets of bright yellow mimosa (and sometimes chocolates) are given to women as a sign of love and respect. To commemorate the occasion, I’m posting “Lace,” a poem by Maria Terrone.* The accompanying photo of my paternal grandmother is part of the familial shrine I set up every year in honor of my beloved foremothers.

Lace

In small Mediterranean towns
women, stooped, and girls
with rag-soft bodies
are making lace intricate as brain circuitry.

See how the light spins through,
imprinting the wall—
not with a maze, but a map
to trace your way home

to women yet unborn who’ll find
the lace at the bottom of a cedar chest,
and marvel.

When the world is like a skein
unravelling, look again to the lace: see
how absence forms its pattern,
and purpose fills even the smallest space.

* Reprinted from Eye to Eye: Poems by Maria Terrone, Bordighera Press, 2014, p. 104