What is a button worth?

This one. . .  

has closed the front of a linen shirt

white as a newly washed cloud

and this one held together the cuff

on a thin wrist. . .

I linger over the colorful array

with a tender memory of

watching her thread a needle,

by her side a sewing basket

woven of reed and willow.

She wasn’t too busy that day,

had the time to sew on a button,

took the time to play.

We emptied the button jar

and spread the circles blue

and brown, black, red, green even

on the kitchen table

the simple white ones here

the fancy red spheres there

a pair of pearly ovals

a hard-working brown one

saved from an oil-stained shirt.

Every button had once been important.

Every button now waited,

wanting to be needed again,

ready to hold together the two halves

of an open collar or

to close tight the child’s winter coat,

dreaming in its own circular way

of being back in someone’s story.