Stained Glass Quilt

(inspired by a poem of the same title

from WWII, Part 2 by Lynn Strongin)

The cathedral windows

stained with swatches

of old dress shirts I hardly wore

skirts and blouses that no longer fit

children’s clothes spotted with dirt

a baby’s pajamas

Each folded into an origami rose

and hand sewn

block by remembered block

into wide strips not yet joined

when she passed

Thread and fabric left behind

boxes of cloth

and half completed

windows saved for another quilt

tossed or lost

completed stripes rescued

Finished

the cathedral coverlet hangs

in her daughter’s living room

with a picture of the family dressed

in clothes echoed in the windows