Featured Poem: A Steady Hand

 

(aka: PenWomenship 2025)

By Christina Larson
Pensacola Branch

 

Nanny Muller’s penmanship

compared to none, I thought.

My nanny formed each A-B-C

         the same way I’d been taught.

‘Cept hers were artful, drawn in

wavey trembles of her pen.

Oh, how I wished I’d saved

         my nanny’s birthday wishes

         to enjoy again, and yet again.

 

A wish come true, my seven-decade hands

now channel nanny’s whimsy ways.

Attempts to read my notes to self

         most often leave me in a puzzled daze.

 

Gone are needle threadings,

         splinter tendings, love note sendings.

Gone my confidence in steadiness.

It turns out true! We take in stride

our aptitudes, until they’re missed.

 

In tribute to dexterity,

‘though viewed with nonchalance,

         neither drab nor black-and-white,

an artistry beyond known color,

I prize this wiggly font-of-fonts,

         and dub it “Nanny Muller.”