Sunrise Sonnet for My Son

by Joanne Durham

My son unloads the dishwasher first thing 
each morning. I think of him, four hundred 
miles away, as I stand on tiptoe to shelve 
last night’s wine glasses, stack my mother’s 
dessert plates, open the drawer beneath 
the oven just deep enough for all the pots 
and pans. He says for him, too, it’s a kind 
of meditation, this routine he and his wife 
have shaped into the contours of a shared 
life, fluted and spacious as the overflowing 
fruit bowl. This is what he possesses, not 
Lenox or Waterford, which neither of us owns, 
this man I raised, who hums as he sorts 
the silverware, noticing how each spoon shines. 

From To Drink From a Wider Bowl.
Evening Street Press, 2022. Buy here

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What meditative tasks do you most enjoy, even if they might seem like chores to others? What kind of loving attention to the everyday things of this world would you like to pass onto your loved ones?