Conversations with lace maker

I step into my grandmother's small room and 
ask her 
How do I choose man to love ?

My grandmother's face is a clock
ticking slowly over tea cups & crochet of white circle patterns  

She tells me:  
Choose someone who will treat you 
like a delicate lace

yet believes that you are more than just a good woman-  

Someone who will 
energize your orange-gold wings to scale the sky-
Or spin your feet to wheels to reach far corners of the earth-

Does his words make
you think of planting seeds & searching for lost ships ?
Or make you feel beautifully alive in dying light?

Did grandpa make you feel that way?  I was curious.
He was my wing man & light of my life.  I have lived a long life, 
but I want to die already, she says.

Her rough & twisted fingers are knotting the patterns
webbing a silk of flowers between spaces & threads - 
stitching fraying edges into womb of her belly-

I say, Grandma 
Men like Grandpa are hard to find. It's like searching for a needle 
among yarns, threads & silver pins in a box.      

Her voice is firm above rustling of cloth:  
I don't waste my time looking for the needle, but use the threads   
& what I have to work my pattern & finally having used all 

The needle falls into my hand to sew the last button
of my lace work.  

I peer at the intricate lines on her face
- this woman who has survived WW2  & countless fires - 
is a bedrock to her 4 sons & 2 step-children

And I want to be lace maker just like her.   

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Bits of Inspiration - Lace
& D'verse Poets Pub - Conversation/Dialogue in Poetry - Hosted by Claudia  ~  My grandmother died many years ago but she lived to 93 years.    Thanks for the visit ~