|
| Colors 1 | Quick as you can holler Jack Robinson,
The daddy's got his red high hat on.
He scolds the mama: skedaddle, skiddoo!
His Nibs is set to make a meal of you!
Hexed and deaf to the cheever's cries,
Blind to all but the flat, round eyes,
Still as a stone on the porch's ledge
By the green and purple lilac hedge
As, colder than steel and older than sin
The black coils wind to reel her in,She's up in the air when the hoe comes down,
And away she flies, all orangy brown.Grandmother's way to say and tell the word
Is clear as a bell or day, as deep as a well or sleep, as free as a bird. |
| | Way with Birds | She would have thought it downright folly
To spend cash money on bird folderol.
She loved her birds but, tight as a tick,
Spent nary a cent on cock, hen or chick.
In truth of fact, she had no need
For store-bought, packaged, fancy seed.
Tied up with string from a nail she hung
An old bit of gristle 'til spring had sprung
And she filled a dish or two with water
As the summer days grew hot and hotter.
Like her, making do with familiar space,
Each year after year, at the customary place
Lived redbirds, bluebirds, goldfinches, juncos,
Nuthatches, wrens, tits, chickadees, sparrows.
Just as she had a way with words,
Grandmother had a way with birds. |
|
|
| Great Uncle Ben Talking | Back in the days when we mostly took care of our own,
When only poverty cases went to wards in state institutions
And only the real bad and dirty went to back bedrooms alone,
Strange sorts lived under foot and home supervision.Sam's Uncle Ed Isaac was just such a strange one.
He'd caught the fever when our age or so said Sam's mother,
"Hadn't been the same since," and before she was done,
"There but for the grace of God go you two, right, brother?"Sam was my best friend; the Pardees were neighbors.
They were poorer but that made us no never mind.
Together, we'd eat, wash, do morning and evening chores.
Young farmboys have a need to be with their own kind.Miz Pardee'd pass the jam and toast more Wonderbread.
Uncle Ed Isaac never said a single thing that I heard.
In his sleep, Sam said he yelled: Lord Jesus is in my bed.
But awake, we couldn't get Uncle Ed Isaac to say a word.He'd look long, hard and fast at me and Sam, then down.
He was happiest in the spring, sitting in the wild flowers
While the hummers, bumbles and flutterbys circled round.
He'd stay quiet in the field and watch all the daylight hours.Miz Pardee'd reach across the table and pat Uncle Ed's head.
She'd nod and sigh and wipe his face free of strawberry.
She had her winter crosses to bear and so did Uncle Ed,
I guess. Back then we mostly kept tribulations in the family. |
| | Family Plot | They lived in Peach Holler.
John and Esther, his wife.
He farmed corn all his life.
Here a dollar, there a dollar.They never had kids.
Hard to say why.
Wasn't that they didn't try.
Wasn't that they did.She raised a fine rose.
My stars, the colors!
40 years she took honors
At the County Rose Show.She called it Peach Tart.
Mercy, what a climber!
Some say an old timer
Gave her a briar rose start.John built her the trellis.
He built himself a still.
He raised corn for the mill
And just a little bit of hell.His hands on the wheel.
The half-pint well hidden.
Hers on the blue ribbon.
Peach Tart in the bed piecemeal.That's how we found them
And we buried them here.
The rose died that same year.
The corn lives on around them. |
|
|
| Senior Snow Perspectives | Do you remember the big snows that fell when we were small?
The giant drifts that swiftly rose around us like a wall?
The flakes that froze our booted toes, burned our noses, hemmed our clothes?
Do you, do you remember those: the snows that used to fall?
Maybe we simply grew too tall or ought to move north of Montreal.
Maybe the global warming pall is on us more than we know.
Snowflakes now are cellulose. Beyond the glass, they decompose.
And even though the North wind blows, the snows aren't snows at all. |
|
|
| Tell Me, Grandma | Tell me, were you really there?
With beads and flowers in your hair? | | | Warnings | Yes, the shade seems friendly.
Pay no attention to such.
Look out for shiny leaves of 3.
Do not reach out to touch.Poison sumac, oak and ivy --
They're the very dickens to kill.
If they don't cause you injury,
Then stinging nettles will.Yes, the glade seems friendly.
What seems may not be real.
Poke with a stick and stay free.
Do not reach in to feel.Lone hornet, wasper, bumblebee,
Snake, snapping turtle, she-bear.
You never know what misery
And nastiness might be there.Beware the world you cannot see.
Take care to test what you do.
My grandmother told this truth to me
Like your grandmother's telling you. |
|
|
