Post by goldenmyst on Feb 7, 2023 18:19:29 GMT -6
Aunt Ethel
In her youth, short cropped black hair
Tending a small tomato patch in the yard
Pastures spreading out in rolling brown grass
Around red brick and white antebellum home
In the attic pictures of confederate soldiers lined up in grey
Nineteenth century typewriter in yellow slant of afternoon sun
Guest rooms with wash bowls and servant bells from a lost age
When granddad and I pulled up in old pickup
She ran out the screen door with a country holler
Grabbing me in a bear hug
Telling yarns from time out of mind
She knew her neighbors like the back of her hand
On a summers day when blackberries swelled on the vine
She'd sit in her tiny row boat in the pond down the road
Fishing all day with crows cawing and tree frogs chirping
On a lazy afternoon at Aunt Ethel's
I would ride my equine friend Trade Winds around the yard
Pretending I was a cowboy
As a youngun, Boots would ride me on Trade Wind’s back
Down the highway to the old country store
Where time had stood still for one hundred years
Jars with stick candy lined up like from a John Wayne movie
Lying in the old four post bed at night
The sound of a train whistle in the distance
Seemed so haunting
Getting up for a cup of water
The water brown with minerals
I felt the solitude of her home
Imagined the loneliness of her late husband's mother
Who never left the house for thirty years
Except when a tiny plane landed in the pasture
And he brought her briefly into the light of day
As decades slipped by Aunt Ethel enjoyed her "old friend" the cigarette
Sitting all day in her bedroom in her castle of memories
The years rolled on as her desire for solitude grew
For over a decade I never saw her in her seclusion
Till her declining health brought her back to the city
In her last days on earth she lived in the city with her brother
He passed a few weeks before her
She and granddad told stories of catching frogs as children
With her gasping breath she lectured me to work hard
We talked about her love of food and cooking
She talked with gusto raising her voice till she was out of breath
And had to reach for the oxygen tank
She laughed just like back in Lorman so many years ago
When she finally slipped from earthly shores
Into that vast cosmic ocean
The Mississippi state legislature held a moment of silence
Out of respect and remembrance
For a country gal whose myth lives on
Like her folktale about the rooster
Who wouldn't get off the stump
And went cock-a-doodle-do
The live long day
In her youth, short cropped black hair
Tending a small tomato patch in the yard
Pastures spreading out in rolling brown grass
Around red brick and white antebellum home
In the attic pictures of confederate soldiers lined up in grey
Nineteenth century typewriter in yellow slant of afternoon sun
Guest rooms with wash bowls and servant bells from a lost age
When granddad and I pulled up in old pickup
She ran out the screen door with a country holler
Grabbing me in a bear hug
Telling yarns from time out of mind
She knew her neighbors like the back of her hand
On a summers day when blackberries swelled on the vine
She'd sit in her tiny row boat in the pond down the road
Fishing all day with crows cawing and tree frogs chirping
On a lazy afternoon at Aunt Ethel's
I would ride my equine friend Trade Winds around the yard
Pretending I was a cowboy
As a youngun, Boots would ride me on Trade Wind’s back
Down the highway to the old country store
Where time had stood still for one hundred years
Jars with stick candy lined up like from a John Wayne movie
Lying in the old four post bed at night
The sound of a train whistle in the distance
Seemed so haunting
Getting up for a cup of water
The water brown with minerals
I felt the solitude of her home
Imagined the loneliness of her late husband's mother
Who never left the house for thirty years
Except when a tiny plane landed in the pasture
And he brought her briefly into the light of day
As decades slipped by Aunt Ethel enjoyed her "old friend" the cigarette
Sitting all day in her bedroom in her castle of memories
The years rolled on as her desire for solitude grew
For over a decade I never saw her in her seclusion
Till her declining health brought her back to the city
In her last days on earth she lived in the city with her brother
He passed a few weeks before her
She and granddad told stories of catching frogs as children
With her gasping breath she lectured me to work hard
We talked about her love of food and cooking
She talked with gusto raising her voice till she was out of breath
And had to reach for the oxygen tank
She laughed just like back in Lorman so many years ago
When she finally slipped from earthly shores
Into that vast cosmic ocean
The Mississippi state legislature held a moment of silence
Out of respect and remembrance
For a country gal whose myth lives on
Like her folktale about the rooster
Who wouldn't get off the stump
And went cock-a-doodle-do
The live long day
