Rafaela Medran

I only know her name and that she lived

                               to be one hundred and eighteen—

this old woman     rooted     weathered and lumpy

in a flounced and shapeless dress       I imagine blue

                      faded     the tiny flowers rose-colored

Maybe it is fall      a blanket      moth eaten      

                                                  drapes her shoulders

Did the photographer place her there     beside

                                 the mud hovel’s gaping doorway?

Or is this how he found her      in pale sun

fending off the chill and darkness of her home?

Her hands thickened by decades       still 

                                                 strong       her grip sturdy 

on the staff steadying her     What is she thinking?

I see sorrow in that furrowed face      dignity

and – look closely—

                                     a musing in her alert gaze

 And that hair—

                                     white and untamed       unruly 

curls spring out from the bandana            

                                                            I see it now     bouncy

black and glossy with youth     see her laughing

twirling at fiesta       a bit wild and careless

                                                                    full of dreams

Or was there servitude      bleakness even then?

I would like to slip back into the past      to sit  

on the worn threshold beside her       

             look into that old face and listen to her story

After the Edson Smith Photo Collection “China Gallera” Adobe

Gudrun Bortman grew up in Hamburg, Germany. She is an artist, garden designer and a poet. Her poems have been published in Sukoon Literary Magazine, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, Miramar and several anthologies published by Gunpowder Press. Her chapbook Fireweed was released in October 2018.