Another piece of paper so old it’s turning brown and brittle.

It’s newsprint, which seems to age as it comes off the press. But still, 1980 was 46 years ago.

This is a poem Mom wrote in 1977. When her alma mater asked for a poem to print in the Summer 1980 edition of their Alumnae News, I’m not sure they expected this:

the cold eye

the cold eye sleeps on sunday
the devil turns his back
the witch sits down at bingo
the black cat powders herself

a fanfare of strawberries for breakfast
a stage of sun
the uncles blow balloons and trumpets
the aunts dance with the babies
the cousins kiss each other
the bride and groom are married in
the sunset
the old one prays for laughter in the
night

the sabbath ends
the cold eye opens like a sore

~ joan vayo ~ January 31, 1977

The platform I use for this blog does not cooperate much with Mom’s specific formatting, so I’ll paste the Alumnae News below:

In case you’re wondering about the spelling of Alumnae News …

Mom graduated from Hartford’s Saint Joseph College in 1952. This was long before it became a co-educational institution in 2018. Alumnae is plural for alumna, the female version of the Latin word alumnus.

For those whom I used to work with, I know you’re rolling your eyes right now (even though “whom” is correctly used here and Latin is very cool). I can live with your eye rolling. Just don’t give me any of that cold eye from Mom’s poem (shudder!).

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“the cold eye” ©1977 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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