She was a collector.

She was a collector.
For hours on end, she would scour old barns with half-blind widows
who didn’t need a computer to know where she put that compote with the hobstar base
or dusty store fronts converted from grocery stores no one needed anymore
because they’d moved their 2.5 children to the suburbs
where there were no cracks in the sidewalks and fat alabaster lines whispered cross here.
She climbed the staircases to musty attics over highway fruit stands
where weekend city campers gushed over folk art
that had not yet seen the change of even a single decade.   
And there in apple crates and ragged Montgomery Ward boxes,
she’d pick each piece up and brush the dust away
to let the glass sparkle through the motes suspended in air.
She’d blow the dirt from the creases,
not crystal but glass precious to people who’d eaten rationed sugar and butter.
She’d turn it over and count the lines the molds left
and dig deep into her memory.
What is this pattern called? Bullseye, bubble?  We’ll have to do some research.
But I can see it’s special so we can’t pass it up.
And some were not valuable,
well not to other people.
But she turned them into treasures just by holding them.
Just by brushing off the dust.
Just by saying You are so special, I cannot pass you up.
And in her bag, they would go, wrapped in butcher paper and Sunday comics.
She would say, I think I have a match for this. But it didn’t really matter because she’d make a match.
She would find just the place for them.
Out in the open where she could favor them each day.
She would tell her friends, This one, now this one is special.
As if she hadn’t said that about each one and meant it with all her heart.
You’ll never believe where I found it.
When the shelves would fill, she would not stop.
She would say, Well, we must find another shelf because there is always room for more treasures.
On New Years’ Eves, and weddings, and Tuesdays,
she would bring them out and fill them with water or wine and
tell you the story of how she found them and where they came from
and how much the tiny chip there on the base made it just all the more precious.
That glass survived the births and deaths and christenings and Christmases and the 4^th of Julys.
It never broke. Through all that! Imagine the stories it has to tell, she’d wonder.
Though the outside was covered in dust
and dirt caked the corners where only she looked hard enough to admire the imperfections of it’s making,
she knew the glass had seen love and loss and hope and pain.
All it needed was a little dusting.
And a place to be treasured in her heart and home.

Copyright Catherine Matthews 2023