Small Talk

I loved today's poem on the Writer's Almanac, by Bronx-born poet Eleanor Lerman.   It seems to me a good poem for the birthday of Our Lady.

It is a mild day in the suburbs

Windy, a little gray. If there is
sunlight, it enters through the
kitchen window and spreads
itself, thin as a napkin, beside
the coffee cup, pie on a plate

What am I describing?
I am describing a dream
in which nobody has died

These are our mothers:
your mother and mine
It is an empty day; everyone
else is gone. Our mothers
are sitting in red chairs
that look like metal hearts
and they are smoking
Your mother is wearing
sandals and a skirt. My
mother is thinking about
dinner. The bread, the meat

Later, there will be
no reason to remember
this, so remember it
now: a safe day. Time
passes into dim history.

And we are their babies
sleeping in the folds of
the wind. Whatever our
chances, these are the
women. Such small talk
before life begins

-- "Small Talk," by Eleanor Lerman, from The Sensual World Re-emerges. © Sarabande Books, 2010.

Above:  "Red Kimono on the Roof" by John Sloan (1912).