I’ve started gathering my grandmothers on my fingers. Ba was first to claim her place as right-hand woman. The signet ring’s a little worn but sharpened almost to a blade’s edge. Her wit used to have the same bite if you weren’t careful. She’d slash you with her words and have you bursting with laughter all in a matter of seconds. Something of a frail bulldozer, unstoppable at times, but even her initials grew faded past the point of a stranger’s recognition.

Granny Kitty is a new addition. I don’t know how she’d fair with the idea of taking up residence on a middle finger but she wasn’t one to back down when the blood began to rise. ‘Up like a light’ my mother says. That was the Irish in her, and the feminist who brought the shields to defend her granddaughters going to university. Independent, clever, funny, tenacious, but most of all loving.

The dandelions

and the daffodils grow still.

Even without Spring.

It’s a free-for-all at the dVerse Poets Pub this week and this I haven’t written a Haibun for a while I thought I’d include two of the people who’ve had the biggest impact on the woman I’ve become and two people I’ve unfortunately lost of the last couple of years.