Martha Ellen Johnson

POETRY

Knitting Buddies

Knitting in Cannon Beach last evening.
[Square peg, as usual.] “Eda’s husband,
Ross, perished on Wednesday,” Sue said.
Super fast-moving cancer. Eda loved
Ross so much. The light of her life.
I’ll go see her today. I’ll tell her of my dream.

The night after my grandmother died,
I dreamt the Sacred Heart opened up.
She walked in as tender and innocent
as a newborn babe. Billions and billions
of people were there waiting for her.
A brilliant, golden light engulfed all.

[I didn’t mention this to my knitting buddies.]

My Dream

A bright sunny day in Illinois.
My grandmother in the backseat,
withered with age.
I turned to her:
Gramma, I want to go on a picnic
with you in Onarga.
I know, but I can’t anymore.

We can always love each other, though.
And she reached out her hand
to hold mine in the perfect love
of the transfigured and resurrected
piercing the illusion of time,
brushing aside the dust of death
with the clarity that love transcends
and exists only in the present tense.

Martha Ellen is a retired social worker living on the Oregon coast. She has an MFA from Portland State University. Her poems and prose are published in various journals and online forums. She writes to process the events of her life.

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Image: Lantern Moon Indochine yarn…and the coast, Michele Lee Bernstein, PDXKnitterati.