“coming to the end of spring / my grandmother kicks off her shoes / steps out of her faltering body.”

Who says there’s just one safe way to walk, one road properly lit, and the rest – all slippery water, unmarked?

If our dreams could edit the news (and sometimes our nightmares) these poems are how they’d wake us up to the urgency of our times.

The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.

My grandmother played the piano, and I used to toddle over there and pick out little things that sounded good to me.

I remember an old Singer sewing machine at home that belonged to my grandmother. It had a pedal. My mom taught me how to use it when I was 12 years old. I used to find it so intriguing, how a flat piece of material could be made into an object that had so many uses.

My grandmother always told me how you start is how you finish.

Superhero roles seem to be popular. I’d like to see more female superheroes. How about a grandmother superhero? I’d pay good money to see that.

The great thing about civility is that it does not require you to agree with or approve of anything. You don’t even have to love your neighbor to be civil. You just have to treat your neighbor the same way you would like your neighbor to treat your grandmother, or your child.

We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother.

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.