Hidden Labor Soothes

As I lie upon layers of contrasting fabric,
indigo, red, fuchsia, and purple comforts me.
My mother’s quilt invites me in. 
Faded and torn, batting peeking out,
raw edges here and there,
warmth surrounds me.
I remember questions I never asked—

Mom, how did you do this? 

How did you know how to cut each square and triangle? Where did you learn to layer                      pink and scarlet remnants from the dresses you made me? When did you do this work,                  this cutting and sewing, the hand stitching?
While Dad was at work?
While we were at school?

There is no trace of the work she’s been doing
now tucked away in a basket
next to her sewing machine in her sewing room.
Each quilt bleeds, oozing cyan into aqua into green.
I give her my shibori dyed silk scraps.

Here Mom, you can make an art quilt.  I’ve brought you a color wheel.

Oh, I have one of those, she said with a smile.
I never could learn how to use it.

When I visit a few years later, she hands me a log cabin wall-hanging.

For each cabin she used a different color of my silk—fire for fall, cool blues for winter, a mixture   of mangos for spring, and oranges for summer.