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| 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
As, colder than steel and older than sin,
The black coils wind to reel her in,
She's still as a stone on the porch's ledge
By the green and purple lilac hedge.
Then off she flies, all orangy brown.
She's up in the air when the hoe comes down.Grandmother's way to say and tell the word
Is clear as day or a bell,
Deep as sleep or a well,
Free as color or a bird. |
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| 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 they didn't try.
And wasn't they did.She raised a fine rose.
My stars, the colors!
40 years she took honors
At the County Garden 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.
John 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 buried them here.
The rose died that same year.
The corn lives on around them. |
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| 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 a fever when our age or so said Sam's mother,
"Hasn't been the same since," and before she was done,
"There but for the grace of God go you two, right, brother?"Sam and me were like brothers; the Pardees were neighbors.
They were poor but that made 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, she'd pass the jam and toast more Wonderbread.
Uncle Ed Isaac never made a single sound I heard.
In his sleep, Sam said he yelled: Lord Jesus is in my bed.
But awake, neither one of us heard him say a word.He'd look long, hard and fast at me and Sam, then down.
He was happiest in the back holler, sitting in wild flowers
While the hummers and bumbles and flutterbys circled round.
He'd stay quiet there and watch them all the daylight hours.Miz Pardee, she'd reach across and pat Uncle Ed's head.
She'd nod and sigh and wipe his face free of strawberry.
She had her crosses to bear. So did Sam and Uncle Ed.
So did I but back then we mostly kept tribulations in the family. |
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| Gray Not Red |
| Come quickly. There's a Gray Fox in the trees. Over there, across the fields, by the tracks. Higher, out of the shadows, closer to the top. See the sun flashing off his sides and back. Yes, he has a red coat. That fooled me, too. No, he's a Gray. We'll get the book. I'll show you. But first look at him lope up to his hidey-hole. He'll snooze there, warm and safe as houses until it's time to get himself a mouse or vole. How do I know he's a "he"? Well, I just do, honey. |
"In contrast to the Red Fox, the Gray Fox readily climbs trees, using the front feet to grasp the trunk and the hind feet to push upward ..."
The Wild Mammals of Missouri, Charles W. and Elizabeth R. Schwartz, first published in 1959, revised by authors in 81, third printing 1995, University of Missouri Press |
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| 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 should pack our bags for 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. |
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| Tell Me, Grandma |
Tell me, were you really there
With beads and flowers in your hair? |
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| Warnings |
Yes, the shade seems friendly.
Pay no attention to such.
Look for shiny leaves of 3.
Do not reach out to touch.Poison sumac, oak and ivy
Are 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 while you keep 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 passed this on to me
And yours is warning you. |
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| 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 piece of gristle 'til spring had sprung
And she filled a dish or two with water
When the summer days grew hot and hotter.
Year after year, at grandmother's place;
Like her, making do with familiar space,
Lived redbirds, bluebirds, goldfinches, juncos,
Nuthatches, wrens, tits, chickadees, sparrows.
Just as she had a way with words,
Grandmother had a way with birds. |
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