My Best Poetry
Menu
Lyric Poems
|
The Myth of a Thousand Pies
Grandma told me the story
And Mother told me too.
How many times in childhood did I hear
About Great-grandpa and the pumpkin pie?
Sometimes it was a long tale,
And sometimes short.
What triggered it?
Talk of pies, probably--
Blackberry cobblers in August on a picnic table in the park
Custard pie with fresh cream in the spring
Apple pie in autumn when the Ozarks turned to glory
And pumpkin at harvest time too,
Round and golden brown like the moon.
“Your Great-grandpa Nicholas Roberts
Used to eat a whole pumpkin pie at lunch time.
Great-grandma would carry it out to the fields in a dinner bucket,
And he’d fold it over like a sandwich
Right there in the hay
And eat it standing up.”
Sometimes the standing up part seemed significant;
At other times it was the fact
That he folded the pie in two.
But eating a whole pie was always the marvel.
I’ve seen a photograph of him
Standing in the yard of the wooden house in Arkansas
That he built by himself.
There he was in his high starched collar
And his droopy moustache,
Upright like a ramrod, tall and slim.
Yes, slim, this man who ate a whole pie,
And not at a single sitting, either,
Since he didn’t even sit down.
This pie prowess—and according to the narrators
It happened more than once,
Maybe all the time, depending on who was telling the story--
This prodigious pie devouring
Happened a hundred years ago
In a hay field that isn’t there anymore.
And the hero of this tale is buried now
In a country cemetery in Missouri
With white stones
All around the edges of his grave.
I never saw him,
But every time I eat a polite bite of pie
In some skinny California bistro,
His voice drawls in an echo
Over a hundred years of fields and stones--
“Eat it all, Honey,
Stand up tall and eat it all!”
Grandma told me the story
And Mother told me too.
How many times in childhood did I hear
About Great-grandpa and the pumpkin pie?
Sometimes it was a long tale,
And sometimes short.
What triggered it?
Talk of pies, probably--
Blackberry cobblers in August on a picnic table in the park
Custard pie with fresh cream in the spring
Apple pie in autumn when the Ozarks turned to glory
And pumpkin at harvest time too,
Round and golden brown like the moon.
“Your Great-grandpa Nicholas Roberts
Used to eat a whole pumpkin pie at lunch time.
Great-grandma would carry it out to the fields in a dinner bucket,
And he’d fold it over like a sandwich
Right there in the hay
And eat it standing up.”
Sometimes the standing up part seemed significant;
At other times it was the fact
That he folded the pie in two.
But eating a whole pie was always the marvel.
I’ve seen a photograph of him
Standing in the yard of the wooden house in Arkansas
That he built by himself.
There he was in his high starched collar
And his droopy moustache,
Upright like a ramrod, tall and slim.
Yes, slim, this man who ate a whole pie,
And not at a single sitting, either,
Since he didn’t even sit down.
This pie prowess—and according to the narrators
It happened more than once,
Maybe all the time, depending on who was telling the story--
This prodigious pie devouring
Happened a hundred years ago
In a hay field that isn’t there anymore.
And the hero of this tale is buried now
In a country cemetery in Missouri
With white stones
All around the edges of his grave.
I never saw him,
But every time I eat a polite bite of pie
In some skinny California bistro,
His voice drawls in an echo
Over a hundred years of fields and stones--
“Eat it all, Honey,
Stand up tall and eat it all!”
1986
Grandma saw the comet in 1910.
“I was still in high school back then,” she tells us,
While she braids her rug.
“We went out into the cornfields
And looked at it through smoked glass.”
“Why the smoked glass?” I ask her.
She isn’t exactly sure.
Her fingers keep the three strands going
Out from the center.
She has to keep it on a card table now
The circles have gotten so large.
We have tickets to the observatory,
But even so, the city lights will get in the way.
“They was a real nice tail to it.
I could see it real good.”
The strips of old stockings shift
From taupe to tan to a rosy cream;
Some of them are left over
From when she was young.
Some I brought this evening
In a paper bag.
“They don’t expect it to be as bright
This time around,” I tell her.
“But at least I have to try for a glimpse.”
“You go on without me,” says Grandma.
“I can’t see that far anymore,
And besides, I’ve got this rug to braid.”
Grandma saw the comet in 1910.
“I was still in high school back then,” she tells us,
While she braids her rug.
“We went out into the cornfields
And looked at it through smoked glass.”
“Why the smoked glass?” I ask her.
She isn’t exactly sure.
Her fingers keep the three strands going
Out from the center.
She has to keep it on a card table now
The circles have gotten so large.
We have tickets to the observatory,
But even so, the city lights will get in the way.
“They was a real nice tail to it.
I could see it real good.”
The strips of old stockings shift
From taupe to tan to a rosy cream;
Some of them are left over
From when she was young.
Some I brought this evening
In a paper bag.
“They don’t expect it to be as bright
This time around,” I tell her.
“But at least I have to try for a glimpse.”
“You go on without me,” says Grandma.
“I can’t see that far anymore,
And besides, I’ve got this rug to braid.”
For Dad, an Elegy
The rains began on the day of your death
And the piper, gritty as a highlander,
Stood in the drizzle
To pipe your coffin into the grave.
Now you rest beneath a pepper tree
Safe with our sacred mother,
Forever in the sweet damp earth.
I will miss the way you loved to look at trees,
The way you noticed shades of gray
In the winter sky.
You would have marveled at today’s mist
And the bright blossoms
Just being born among the deep
Azalea leaves.
December 5, 1992
The rains began on the day of your death
And the piper, gritty as a highlander,
Stood in the drizzle
To pipe your coffin into the grave.
Now you rest beneath a pepper tree
Safe with our sacred mother,
Forever in the sweet damp earth.
I will miss the way you loved to look at trees,
The way you noticed shades of gray
In the winter sky.
You would have marveled at today’s mist
And the bright blossoms
Just being born among the deep
Azalea leaves.
December 5, 1992
Siblings
We walk in her tiny garden
And cut figs from the tree.
Her quince still looks dead and stick-like,
But she says it will bloom soon--
The red blossoms will come out
Even in winter’s chill.
We three old siblings reach up high
To pick last year’s sweet oranges,
And peel them in the yard,
Juice dripping on our fingers
As our heads form a tight triangle
In the pale sunlight.
We three are at ease, as we were
Six decades ago,
And as we are now with no one else.
And none of us mentions
That tomorrow she will not remember
That her brother and sister
Were here.
February 13, 2013
We walk in her tiny garden
And cut figs from the tree.
Her quince still looks dead and stick-like,
But she says it will bloom soon--
The red blossoms will come out
Even in winter’s chill.
We three old siblings reach up high
To pick last year’s sweet oranges,
And peel them in the yard,
Juice dripping on our fingers
As our heads form a tight triangle
In the pale sunlight.
We three are at ease, as we were
Six decades ago,
And as we are now with no one else.
And none of us mentions
That tomorrow she will not remember
That her brother and sister
Were here.
February 13, 2013
The River
I remember back in Idaho
Seventy years ago,
My daddy would sit on the front porch in the evening,
Smoking a cigarette,
And listening to the Snake River.
We couldn’t see it from our house,
But he knew it was there.
Now, as I sit on the back steps,
Thinking of him,
I watch the tide grow higher,
See the stacks on clouds on the horizon
Turn pink, layer by layer,
And listen to the endless call of the sea.
I can’t hear him,
But I know he’s here.
April 29, 2019, Kaaawa, Hawaii
I remember back in Idaho
Seventy years ago,
My daddy would sit on the front porch in the evening,
Smoking a cigarette,
And listening to the Snake River.
We couldn’t see it from our house,
But he knew it was there.
Now, as I sit on the back steps,
Thinking of him,
I watch the tide grow higher,
See the stacks on clouds on the horizon
Turn pink, layer by layer,
And listen to the endless call of the sea.
I can’t hear him,
But I know he’s here.
April 29, 2019, Kaaawa, Hawaii
Proudly powered by Weebly