Balance & Grace ~ Hanky Panky

By ELLEN LEWIS

Yesterday was a horrible day in the USA. Evil descended. Las Vegas happened. In a year already fraught with nature’s destruction and divisive prideful anger, this was darkness at its pinnacle. It seems nearly impossible to soldier on. When one is writing about lingerie on days such as this, the mission seems trite. How does one relate such relentless trauma to the business of underwear? It’s not easy.

I choose Hanky Panky as my allegory. This brand has defied the pecuniary pressures of an ever demanding marketplace for 40 years. They have balanced the sober realities of a Made in the USA product with the constant pressure of retailers seeking margin, margin, and more margin. Not an easy commission for a volume driven company. They continue to offer a wealth of functional fashion basics, hitting the market trends without compromising quality. Visiting their showroom is a sojourn in a garden of intimate delights. Born and bred in the intensity of the New York apparel industry, they are an ever blooming light in a sea of sameness. Right now we need the diversion

Grace 

There is an empty lot I pass each day
Strewn with debris, abandoned dreams
Scattered randomly on what seems
An abused surface of asphalt clay.

I wonder how this broken place
Can face each day of grey neglect
Disappointment, disillusionment and regret
And yet survive this futile space.

I see a sprig of green, a single flower
Holding forth its petaled head
Rejecting dread and the promise of pain
Straining forth from a weedy bed.

She lifts her head to the day’s first light
Embracing the fight and blooms instead
Laboring forth to deny fate’s race;
A gift of grace.
~EML