DRAWING STARS

My mother taught me to draw stars

one afternoon in the bright kitchen

window panes frosted over

December holiday time:

My mother is starting a marinara sauce

peeling the garlic    chopping the onion

I sit at the kitchen table

with pencil, paper, crayons, scissors, glitter, glue

not quite five

excited, intense, intent on drawing stars

I squeeze the pencil tight

it races around, trails, stops

droopy, crazy lines    no stars

I plead with my mother to show me how

she carefully places the pencil between my fingers

puts her hand

    sweetly fragrant with garlic and onion

over mine

as she guides me up and down

    over and across    up and down again

teaching me to draw stars

together we draw

    five point Christmas stars

    six point Stars of David

we stop and admire them

I open my crayon pouch of pink paisley fabric

     my mother has made for me

I love that it opens and closes

    with a green ribbon drawstring

inside are all my crayons    new and old

all the best colors

for all the beautiful stars I will make

I slowly draw stars on my own

    five point Christmas stars

    six point Stars of David

I color them. paste glitter on, cut them out

later we hang them

on the indoor orange tree from Sicily

where at the top an angel sits

A half century later

the boss loses her patience with me

she must let me go from the job

she cannot teach me to go as fast as she wants

on all the tasks I try to do

intense, intent on doing the job

I wanted to learn how to speed through the job

yet all my best lessons

learned so long ago

have been of slowness

                      patience

                      striving for beauty

just as when my mother and I sat

at the kitchen table

drawing stars.

Maria Fama