Young Jeanne and her paternal grandmother stand in an unending field of red clover one beautiful Easter, with Jeanne holding her Easter basket filled to overflowing with brightly-colored eggs she found at her material grandmother’s house mere hours before her daddy took this photo.
Click the triangle to listen to Jeanne read A Remembering
A Remembering
by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers
Silently
her fingers touch every
wrinkle
every freckle every pore
of my face.
Her exploratory adventure
begins with my fingers
turning them into a treasure map
as her cute, chubby fingers
trek over my fingernails and knuckles
to my palm
my wrist
up to my elbow
and around the bend to my shoulder.
From there
her pudgy, inquisitive fingers
meander across my collarbone
to the base of my neck.
Up, up, up they go,
using my chin
as a home base,
her index and middle fingers
walking my jawbone
first to my left ear
then to my right.
Her curious fingers dip into the
pools of my ears
and skip around the rims
as though they’re an amusement park.
She moves slowly
taking her time,
knowing I will honor her curiosity
with patience
and possibly this poem for
the daily journal I keep for her.
My cheekbones
provide a bridge to my nose
which she explores thoroughly
from the edges that hold it in the space
above my lips
to the smallest part
between my eyes
(unless you count the nostril caves
which she thankfully
chooses not to visit!)
Her fingers slide down
freom the top of my nose
to the bottom,
and from there
it’s a short hop to my lips
which plant themselves on her face
and knees and toes and heels
and hands and shoulders and fingers so often,
they need only the most cursory
going over.
Back up the nose
then over to my eyes
which admittedly makes me nervous.
Will she be gentle
or will she poke me in the eye
and push them out of the socket?
Is that even possible?
This 2 year old would know.
Up my forehead then across my hair,
her fingers climb
to the
tip top of my head
where decades ago a fontanel existed
giving my brain room to grow.
She lingers longest here atop my head
right in the center.
The crown,
some call it,
where wisdom,
divine connection,
and clarity
is fostered.
What is she doing?
Is this a hands-on anatomy class
or something else?
No sounds are uttered
and I wonder . . .
If I can be still enough
for long enough,
if I can avoid interruptions
of people needing something
of the to do list tapping its foot
or the timer clearing its throat
to let me know it’s time to switch the laundry,
If I can manage that sizable miracle
of quiet,
might my fingertips –
through their nerves
and muscles
and haptic intelligence –
remember a night when
2 year old me shared a pillow
with my grandmother,
tracing her face,
intently memorizing what even then I knew
I’d never want to forget?
Might my fingers remember
my grandmother’s 2 year old fingers
tracing the face of her grandmother
and that grandmother,
as a 2 year old,
memorizing the face of her grandmother?
Through some enchanting mystery
might I remember
generations of love
through my fingertips?
~~~~~~~
A note read by Jeanne explaining the 10-day gap between penning and posting.
On September 1, 2025, I began a daily writing practice. This poem, while penned on September 2, is posted on September 12, 2025 because such is my life. The 2 year old and her boundless curiosity live with us. Enough said about the 10-day gap between penning and posting. Thank y’all for reading along.
here ‘n there