Christmas 2022
The Shopping Quilt
Shopping is a woman’s art
for what to hold
and for what to part
from:
the past,
or even
the present.
Shopping is the path
to a heaven
of abundant treasures,
not merely
the material pleasures
of dresses
and shoes
and hats with
feathers
but
of faith in the future:
a closet of beauty
a drawer of silken finery
a box of cherished cotton
a shelf not forgotten
that guards
what no shop can sell —
Hope
where only God foretells
What will be
and What can never become.
The womanly art of
shopping
is like an urgent drum
battant la chamade
for the Huntress
Telling her to ne’er forget
to have an open mind
for What Can Be:
Dresses of serenity
A blouse that the past
denied
Une armoire filled with
the pride
of femininity,
shoes that walk
with confidence
toward the destiny
of a path not taken
to awaken
the girl within the woman
the woman within the girl.
Shopping is an intrigue
not of money or possession.
Shopping is an eternal lesson
in how to be
forever
the thing of beauty
that God created for man:
la Femme
The Woman.
Debra Milligan
29 August 2022