Mum's stained glass - edit #1

[Todd]

Hi Mercedes,

I didn't find much that I didn't like here. I fear I won't have much to offer, but here goes.

You remembered you’d missed your early morning cuppa
when I asked the hour I was born, to start my star chart.--I like the interaction and contrast between the mother and daughter in this first couplet. It's a very immediate way to define the differences and begin to set the tension.
 
Child bearing and birthing came easy to you. Six kids
in eight years, tumbled together, a litter of pups.
 
Summers spent bottling fruit, making jams and chutney
so the kitchen cupboards filled with stained glass.--Goes back to the title, and probably my favorite part of the poem. I think this is the central metaphor. Here's how I took it. The mother as we learn later went through the depression. This bottling of food is a practical matter. The fanciful daughter seems something in it that the mother probably never could. Again worker vs artist. This is compact and carries a lot of emotional subtext. Stained glass also makes you think of churches maybe implying reconciliation, though I think mostly it isn't being used for that. I think its simply one person sees food the other person sees something more magical. If I went Biblical (due to the stained glass) the mother is Martha, the daughter is Mary.
 
A child of the Depression throws nothing away;
plastic, paper, you never know when you’ll need it.--Nice set up lines
 
I wrote to you, through love and loss and laziness,--Pleasing sonics with the L sounds.
from other countries, and different marriages.--smooth summary in the couplet
 
I found my letters in a suitcase while packing you up.--I took this as bringing the mother to come live with her. Its interesting that the letters were in a suitcase, that might imply that if the mother needed to leave these would go with her. Though the later line about words don't arrive might call that to question. It may have just been a spot to put them. I go back and forth on this, because if it was truly as stark as the latter option you probably would have added unopened.
Now we are together again, at the other end of life,
 
my words don’t arrive. You don’t understand.--There's a part of me that wants to split the ideas of this line into your final couplet and ending with it. Even than this probably still needs something more.
You’re very tired, making your own way home.--This doesn't feel like the closure I was suspecting. There probably needs to be a tie in earlier to make get to the ending you need. I'm not sure honestly. Just that this doesn't feel like the wrap.
 
 
 
 

This could turn into something really nice. I feel that given your title and the importance of the different interpretations of stained glass mother vs daughter, the answer for closure is there.

I hope some of that ramble is helpful.

Best,

Todd