Poem for September 2010

Poem for September 2010

Solitaire or Patience, as it used to be called, is more than a card game.

         -- Meredith Holmes 

 

Solitaire                                                                                             

By Mary E. Weems

I used to wonder why grown folks, my grandmother

in particular, could sit still long enough to play a game

of solitaire? What was it about shuffling through a deck

of cards long enough to line up all four suits that appealed

to them?

Back then when I was tall and gangly as a just-born

mare, I'd spend all my free time somewhere learning

the latest dance moves, my body shaking in the air, my feet

stomping out funk rhythms.

I didn't even know how to play cards, and any time my grandmother tried to sit me down to learn, I'd pretend to be interested, then break all the rules, until she finally let me go outside where time was waiting to take me for a long ride,

teach me one year at a time what patience was

and why grown folks learned to play.

Mary E. Weems is a poet and playwright and served as the 2007-2008 Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights. She is assistant professor in the Department of Education and Allied Studies at John Carroll University. Her new play Closure opens the fall 2010 season at Karamu Theatre.