“Wooden Heart” For Blast from the Blog, October 23.

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The wooden heart described in the poem, along with a copper heart pin I made for him.

Wooden Heart (Originally published on October 23, 2014)

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Wooden Heart

He handed it to me without ceremony—a small leather bag, awl-punched and stitched together by hand. Its flap was held together by a clasp made from a two fishing line sinkers and a piece of woven wax linen. I unwound the wax linen and found inside a tiny wooden heart with his initials on one side, mine on the other. A small hole in the heart had a braided cord of wax linen strung through that was attached to the bag so that the heart could not be lost. He had woven more waxed linen into a neck cord. I was 39 years old when he gave me that incredible thing I never thought I would receive: his heart—as much of it as he could give.

It was the first handmade gift I’d ever received from a man. Inside, over the years, I have put a lock of his hair and a tiny tiny animal of indeterminate species hand-cut out of wood by his youngest son and presented to me. Twenty-eight years later, this bag is all that is left of what was once my union with the man and his eight children from three different women. When he died, we returned him to the inevitable earth and all of the children returned forever to their real mothers.

The bag lies in a box with other relics of our past together: a silver heart brooch, another carved of wood with wings attached and, strangely enough, a miniature computerized hand piano. Years after his death, it struck a chord on its own, just lying on the shelf beside my favorite picture of him. One last dying gasp from the tiny gadget I’d put in his Christmas stocking but then grown tired of hearing him play and so had hidden away, only to enter our bedroom one night to find him playing it under the covers like a guilty pleasure hidden from the adults, although he was already in his sixties.

For our first Christmas, he gave me a large sculpture that was also a musical instrument—three hand-raised copper gongs in the shape of breasts suspended over a wooden keyboard played by rawhide mallets, the gongs suspended from the long horizontal neck of a copper wind instrument with two necks and two mouthpieces, so two notes could be blown at once. When he died, it was the sculpture chosen by his youngest daughter, and I let her take it. Now, the remnants I have of him are only the leftovers that remained after eight children had chosen. I was moving to another country and could not hold onto everything he’d given.

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Sculpture by Bob Brown,1986.  4′ X 5.5′, wood, hand forged copper, marble and hemp.

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Miniature hand piano, 4″ X 2″

I moved away from most of those things we had collected over the years, but somewhere hidden away in the thousand objects in my studio is the small leather bag and the tiny hand piano, now forever mute, his father’s pocket watch, his biking medals and the other assorted pieces of his life that will one day wind up in a secondhand store in Mexico. All of our gifts finally melding with the parts of all those billions of other lives that strike their brief chord before blending, inevitably, back into the cacophony of the universe.

The Prompt: What’s the best present you’ve ever received that was handmade by the giver, not store-bought? Tell us what made it so special.

 

 

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18 thoughts on “Wooden Heart”

  3. kellyshaw2001's avatarkellyshaw2001
    Damn! I’m only coming back here when I’m ready to sob! How do these things happen? Yet they do, and somehow, some way, some ability of the heart makes it okay…makes it beautiful. Kelly

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  5. Pingback: Daily Prompt: By Hand | tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice (Edit)
  6. Pingback: Handmade Friendship | My Own Champion (Edit)
  9. Pingback: Cacophony | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown (Edit)
  10. N's avatarN
    This is so beatutiful… the gift the thought the post all so beautiful!!!
    Ans so delicately writtem …”his heart—as much of it as he could give” lovely!

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  13. SAM VOELKER's avatarSAM VOELKER
    I just this morning happened on this, and it shows that deep love you two had, that is everlasting. Such a beautiful tribute, touching, and I do hope that you still look at that little bag and hold it, and feel the love that went into it. I have a special place with my memories as well, and they mean so much to me. So beautiful, it is time for you to re-post this with an update. I too treasure such items that would mean nothing to another person and I wonder if some day they will end up on a yard sale table for fifteen cents, a book, a painting, a piece of jewelry or fine wood box I made for her, something I picked up in another country when I had to be away from her on a trip, nothing really valuable except for the love that went into it. There was one valuable item that I gave her from China, and she gave to a person when she was dying. This person did not value it, and I asked if I could have it back, causing family problems, but I wanted it to be where it was appreciated, not for money, but for love.

    From your writings, I see Bob Brown as a person with a strong inner persona; one who had difficulty outwardly showing his love, maybe due to his past failures, and this has bothered you, but it was there and the greatest gift that he had for you is still attached at the end of your name. Maybe in a ghostly way he sent me and others to remind you this, but I feel that you really do not need that nudge, it will be with you for the rest of your life, and this is your life lesson for today.

    I wrote more, but just erased it because I told myself, “she already knows what I am writing, who am I, someone she never met, to remind her”~!

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessonsPost author
      Sam, thanks for reminding me of this piece written so many years ago. Just recently, I cleaned out my studio and found both the little piano and the little leather purse necklace. It was in a bag I had meant to make into a retablo. I had forgotten, however, that I had written this piece about it. I just hit my 6,666th post and like things tossed into a junk drawer, poems and essays can get lost. I’m glad to have this one back again! Yes, I’ll post it again at the appropriate time. Thanks to you.

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Welcome to the Numbers Game #137. The Prompt number this week is #754!!!!

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I am so sorry that I have been very remiss in posting The Numbers Game for the past month!!! I have been working on 3 books at the same time and my mind just slipped a cog and I totally forgot about it. Strange, because I love both doing it and seeing what you come up with..So, mea culpa. Here is this week’s prompt two days late:  It is Game #137 and the number for photos is 754! Here are mine:

Cookies bought
Words Found on the Beach
I don’t thin Oscar wants to be King.

Advance Warning

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Advance Warning

If I catch you cheating, this is what I’ll do:
first, I will remove myself completely from your view.
I’ll take a long vacation to some desert isle
to learn acts of seduction and perfect my guile.
Of course, I’ll have to practice on a man or two,
and if I’m a slow study, perhaps I’ll have a few.
And then when I get home, I’ll know how to cheat on you!!!

For Esther’s Writing Prompts, the prompt is “Catch.”

“Lonely” for dVerse Poets

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Edvard Munch, The Dead Mother (1899)

Lonely

Whatever I say to her, Mommy can’t hear,
so I’m raising a hand to cover each ear.
Monkey see, monkey do is a familiar rhyme
but she doesn’t seem to see me this time.
She’s either sleeping or maybe she’s ill,
tucked under covers, all quiet and still.
Because daddy is busy and feeling real sad,
I’m afraid if I bother him, it would be bad.
But, once she’s finished napping, I hope that she’ll say
that she is all rested and ready to play,

For dVerse Poets

Let’s Hit Rewind for Oct 21

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IMG_1990Kittens reacting to Morrie and Diego, jealousy barking at the closed gate that separates them from their arch rivals, the cats.

Cat Napped

My dear little creatures, I did not expect
that your lives and mine would intersect.
I didn’t know in the hush of my life
your antics would make such a mush of my life.

I spout silly names like “kitty” and “baby.”
Have I gone dotty? I must admit, “Maybe.”
I’m given to lying prone on my bed
letting the boy kitten claw at my head,

combing my hair with his kittenish claws
as his sisters cavort without mercy or pause,
biting my fingers and licking my knees.
I let them assault me wherever they please.

I find them adorable and entertaining.
Besotted with kittens, my interest is waning
in matters less feline. I neglect the dogs.
Leave them to possums and squirrels and frogs.

I feed them and throw an occasional ball,
but lately, obsessions more easily fall
into matters of cat, I’m embarrassed to say
it’s entirely possible one day I may

turn into that cat lady, brunt of those jokes
told by low-lifes in bars and other brash blokes
making fun of those who, although different, perhaps,
get pleasure enough from cats on our laps!!!

(From 9 years ago…)

The Epistoler, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 779

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The Epistoler

One persistent lunatic, he urged incessantly
for me to view the letters that he had written me.
Mere pranks, they held the bones of words, lacking pulse and skin.
Only a fool would open them to see what lurked within.
His ghastly mind existed in a world the devil cast––
dark and cruel and twisted. Interminably vast.
If he goes east, I must go west, my hand curled in a fist.
The world would be much better if he did not exist.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 779  the prompt words are: letters urged exist pranks view incessantly west fools lunatic bones ghastly vast 

“One No Trump” From this date, Oct 19, in 2020–But, it still applies! For Cracking Open the Content Time Capsule.

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One No Trump

It seems that any smartie would
have questions of the hardihood
of one who can’t control his urges,
but opens mouth and simply purges!
It’s anything but recondite
that he is less than erudite.

He stammers and he mispronounces
as he proudly mis-announces
facts and figures he’s invented,
letting out hot air that’s pented
up inside his roiling brain.
The scuttlebutt? This man’s insane!

For the present, we’re stuck with him,
but (we hope) his future’s grim.
In the future, perhaps a cell—
a domain that would suit him well.
No more oval office for
this vain and posturing dimwit bore!

If they ever choose to make
a movie of this shyster flake,
casting’s bound to be a bummer—
choosing between “Dumb” and “Dumber.”
Which will most aptly replicate
our soon-to-be ex “Fool of State?”

Waiting for the Rest of Her Life for “Blast from the Blog,” Oct 18, 2016

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img_7765 photo and collage by jdb

Waiting for the Rest of Her Life

She has faith in the future that her life will fit.
She sits at home patiently, planning on it.
But as she sits waiting for the rest of her life,
the fear it won’t happen cuts like a knife.
As day after day goes by in a whirr,
she’s starting to realize it might not occur.

Her little white dog lies curled up beside her,
but stroking his coat won’t relieve what’s inside her.
She’s yearning for something­–she’s not quite sure what.
Inside her, the want of it roils in her gut,
then digs itself deeper into her soul.
It’s like playing a game where she can’t find the goal.

In every city, far up, looking down,
there are folks in tall buildings, surveying the town—
every alley and walkway for as far as they can
eyes staring out as they survey and pan
the small world below them that must have an answer
to this life that’s consuming them like a slow cancer.

I want to tell them that love can’t find you.
You must lean yourself over and pick up a shoe.
Put it on, then the other one. Walk out the door.
Waiting’s not what life was intended for.
We were pushed into life at the time of our birth,
and life goes on pushing all over the earth.

So all of you people with all of your faces
behind all these windows in all of these places,
Give up your pining and wishing and hoping.
No happiness lies in all of this coping.
Go find your soulmate, no matter the weather,
and then you can spend your life waiting together.

“Zits” for The Throwback Edition (Oct 17, 2016)

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Zits (A Cure for Acne):

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daily-life-color226-2I don’t know why we all look so pleased about that really big one on my chin.
Teenagers are a strange species. This photo circa 1961, summer camp.

Zits
(A Cure for Acne)

Hormones need an exit too,
and I fear, dear teen, it’s you
they choose to make their mark upon;
but rest assured, they’ll soon be gone.

The need for Retin-A is urgent
when a new batch becomes emergent,
and though you quell the vile insurgent,
all too soon it is resurgent.

The solution for you is not simple.
You might consider veil and wimple
that hide both blemish and that dimple,
or simply choose to pop the pimple.

And though your folks will foot your bill
to pop, instead, the pimple pill
or swathe your face with Clearasil,
another can show up, and will.

Most folks my age have reached concurrence,
so please accept our reassurance.
Against each crop there’s no insurance.
it simply takes faith and endurance.

You might obsess and cry and pout
and wonder what it’s all about;
but it will pass, without a doubt
when age replaces it— with gout.

Kittenish for “Lets Hit Rewind”

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Kittenish

Happy child with brand new kitten,
fully rapt, besotted, smitten.
Length of yarn a perfect toy
for kitten, pulled by playful boy.

Every toy another gimmick,
child on floor, a playful mimic.
Rolling over, willy-nilly,
feeling loving. Feeling silly.

All day long, antics and fun
in the house or in the sun.
Inside, outside, all the same.
With a kitten, life’s a game.

Sundown creates a sleepy-head
tucked under covers, snug in bed.
Mom and Dad survey the scene.
Gentle snores. Quiet. Serene.

Window open, curtains billow.
Kitten curled up on the pillow
nested in her master’s hair.
Two creatures in their common lair.

From Oct. 16, 2019