The Heron's Nest

Editors' Choices

The Heron's Nest Award

"Folding towels" is a common experience, something we've each done or witnessed many, many times. This expansive fragment immediately conjures the warmth of straight-from-the-dryer towels. The softness of a plush absorbent fabric. Perhaps even a specific color comes to mind. Certainly, a smell of fabric softener or maybe strong bleach. I picture bath towels, but these could be beach towels, hand towels, decorative towels, or dish towels.

"Folding towels" may not show up in any saijiki but seems to function as a kind of domestic kigo nonetheless, for its ability to ground the reader in a particular time and place. Without mentioning specifics, it allows the reader to easily step into the poem and supply the place and time from their own experience. At my home, all the clean towels were dumped from a laundry basket onto the bed where they were sorted, folded, and placed into piles before being returned to their place of residence in the linen closet. But these towels might be folded on top of the dryer as they are removed one by one. Or folded into a clothes basket as they are being unpinned from an outdoor clothesline. Or spread out on the kitchen table. I have a friend who takes advantage of an unused pool table in her basement for sorting and folding towels. For some, laundry is always done on a specific day of the week. Or depending on the number of individuals living in a home, daily. Laundry may be a morning chore. For me, at one point, it fell in the middle of the day while little ones were napping or late in the evening after children were put to bed. This is a poem that could evoke autumn memories or possibly strong ties to spring cleaning. I wonder what sort of picture forms in your mind.

A wonderfully loaded pivot in the second line, "my mother's way" works with both the first and third lines while also offering a bit of tension. Afterall, mother knows best. I picture a shared domestic chore as a mother and child fold towels together with the child learning the technique either through observation or direct instruction. It is also possible that a grown child is now realizing an unconscious learning has taken place over the years. I wonder if anyone ever asked why the mother folds towels this way? It could be she doesn't even know. Maybe it's how her mother did it. Depending on one's relationship with her mother, the way she folds towels can fall anywhere between endearing or, if presented as the only "acceptable" way, even infuriating. But the pivot doesn't end there. It carries the reader into the third line for an additional twist.

"My mother's way with the past" is something else altogether. We all deal with the past in our own way. Some fold the past into neat packages—all clean and sanitized, allowing only pleasant memories to surface. Others pack the past away out of sight; keeping it deep in the closet. Traumatic pasts may lead to a need to control maybe with tight, precise, creased folds. Some let it all hang out—airing their dirty laundry, so to speak. Presented objectively, as the best haiku are, we don't know if the poet is fondly reminiscing, gently kidding, rolling her eyes or even gritting her teeth as she relays this "way" her mother has. From the gentle wording, we don't know if this is a present-day exercise or only the poet remembering her mother who is now gone. I've seen YouTube videos that show very elaborate ways to fold towels that form pockets or create adorable animal shapes as a very mindful practice. My own habit tends to be something that occurs mindlessly as I focus on other things. Perhaps this folding exercise offers time to reflect on the past. And as the past seems likely to repeat itself, so too will the poet repeat the same exercise of folding towels.

This delightfully open poem leads the reader to see the profound in the ordinary as it takes a look at a common domestic chore. It presents simultaneously a moment in time and a look into the past with an openness that leaves so much unspoken about "my mother's way." We are left to unfold what that may mean for each of us on our own. Thank you, Michele, for this opportunity to reflect on our own domestic habits and relationships and pasts.

Julie Schwerin
March, 2023