Mindful Poetry Gathering - February 19th, 2026

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end

Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt

That I might keep some child warm

—Nikki Giovanni, “Quilts”

In this gathering, we listened and contemplated the poem "Quilts" by Nikki Giovanni. The Well's Patrick Raneses opened our session with a Begin Again Meditation and spoken word artist and poet Gifted Johnson-Wilkinson opened led our exploration of the poem.

PROMPT, 10 minutes:

1) This poem opens up its first line with a simile: "Like a fading piece of cloth"

• What kind of simile can you think of when it comes to aging?

2) When you see a quilt, it can evoke an array of thoughts and feelings. Whether it is deeply connected to a personal memory, a cultural narrative, or a vibrant piece of artwork.

• What do you think of when you see a beautiful quilt? (find 3 words to describe it)

3) Use these 3 words and your simile for aging to create a poem.

Connect with Gifted

Stitches In Time

By Bî-Mia Harris

Humble history

We, like barrel aged whiskey 

Offer comfort, warmth

To My Grandmother

By Bryce Kessler

Like fruit falling off a branch
Just when it knows it should,
I am ripening

No longer am I
Just an idea of my mother and father,
Or a hope of my grandmother and grandfather,
Or a dream of my great-grandmother and great-grandfather

I am real.

Like the multi-colored luminosity of a double rainbow
Cresting from the Queen City to The Land

Like the seasons that stitch one month to the next
In colors of mahogany, ice, bubblegum, and golden corn

Like the stars so infinitely far away
Burning at thousands of degrees
Amidst a frozen void and shining all the way across time
Into my watering eyes

I see all of these images in the scrap quilt
My grandmother made
As I pull it higher, tighter against my chin
And the wind blows against the window.

Family Heirloom (Quilt)

By Gifted Johnson-Wilkinson

Stitch by stitch

I have been the thread
In the fabric of life
The suture for our
Wounds
Resilience in the face
Of storms
Loop of the Johnson's
Jewels

Stitch by stitch

Resourceful patchwork
Holding our family
Together better
Than hot glue

I'm the layered covering
Of protection
Connecting all of our
Colorful designs
The heirloom of all our
Treasures
Comforting warmth
Surrounds when I'm near
A vessel of codes
That free your soul
I'm the one you
Bear

Yet my wrinkles unfold
Voice grows cold
As I become old
And wonder...

Who will be left
To snuggle with
The stories still
Untold

And continue to
Connect the
Legacy of our
Weave
Stitch by stitch

Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Honeymooners

By M. A. Dennis

Like an old remote control

to an old television

in an old house

with old plumbing

and its occupants

and peeling paint

and skin

and memories

fading

forgotten

maybe somewhere

in the annals of time

there is a place

archiving spent youth

and outdated purpose

and fading

and memories

and skin

and peeling paint

and its occupants

with old plumbing

in an old house

with an old television

and remote control

no longer in use,

but still operable.

Stitches

By Elena Estella Green

You took me out of a scrap bin

With all my frayed ends each

Thread a memory of a life lived

In patches, from blue mornings 

To a blacked out childhood so

Much sand in a barrel of time

So much sifting for the good bits

Worth saving.all the undone things

I think about floatIng  away in this senior 

Mind more like syncopated jazz than

Thought. More like notes in the wind

Giving me that faraway look like 

Standing on a hill all green grass

Overlooking a meadow of wonder

Soft and smelling of nature in its 

Finest gown of moss and clover

And buttons of dandelion blooms

Before blowing away in tufts of white.

I would like to unravel this way -

One seed at a time planted in all the

Places I wished to go searching for

A self I lost long ago bunched up on the 

Surface Of a sewing machine table.