My parents collaborated on some handmade children’s books in the 50s. This morning I pulled out Mr. Crow’s Christmas written in 1957. These books are a great balance between the two of them. There’s a lyrical drawn story line by my mother and the ingenuity and inventive mechanics of my father. She drew and wrote. He carved woodcuts, printed each page and bound it all with a red burlap cover. Even though I wasn’t born yet, in one of the last images there are three children coming down a set of stairs. There are two boys and a girl and the drawing of the girl looks like the images my mother made of me as a young child. I am glad these books exist. I love the drawings, the story and assemblage. Thanks to my mother for the story of the crow and for her love of candles.
Thanks
Thank you for drawing the crow
outside my window.
Thank you for drawing the wrinkled bittersweet berries
brightening the blighted ash.
Thank you for drawing the stump, the mound
and the dog with a broken hip.
Thank you for drawing the horizon like that.
Thank you for drawing the woman standing.
She isn’t saying anything. I like that.
Thank you for drawing the dry lightning.
Thank you for drawing the grass
crawling out from under the iron ball.
Thank you for drawing the open skies.
Thank you for adding color
in the form of a tangerine drift of birds
moving away toward the sound of a harp
that embodies a heaven I can only imagine.
I love this picture.
I look at it every day.
Thank you for not making a film instead.
— Mary Ruefle, poet laureate of Vermont
