The Table in the Sunroom

Remembering Grandma West, summers, and the Orofino Creamery ...

The Table in the Sunroom

The rays from the evening sun glowed on the hollyhocks;

the windows of the sunroom framed Grandma’s tall gladiolus .

Dad wiped his reddened face,

the pitcher of ice tea sweating under the stifling heat.

Steam rose from the bowl of garden fresh beans --  

we  climbed to the back of the table

wedged between the White sewing machine and the old Kelvinator,

squeezed in the six chairs.

Corn on the cob was always in season.

 The kernels small and golden.

Grandma cut her kernels delicately off the cob,

I begged for the knife so I could do the same.

In a voice that even the neighbors could hear, Mom announced,

“You have good, strong teeth…

just eat it off the cob.”

Next a plate of tomato slices

followed by cooked beets and fried pork chops.

I lifted my legs as bare skin stuck to the chair,

while my brother was kicking my foot,

my baby sister’s damp hair stuck to her head.

From my seat I couldn’t gaze at Grandma’s garden

 or watch the bees buzz around the roses,

but I took in the slow table conversation

as I tried to cut up my tomato:

Canning cherries, and Norm and growing cucumbers,

Konkleville, Canada Hill and cousin John came up.

Is that fire still burning out at Yellow Dog?

What is on special at the Glenwood Market?

Dad took his paper napkin and wiped his face again,

And told Grandma this was the best corn he had ever had.

Her eyes lit up as she rose from the table

And thank goodness headed to the old chest freezer.

A treat from the Orofino Creamery would be

passed around last.

The sun slipped behind the crabapple tree,

The shadows cooled the sunroom.

That cold vanilla ice cream was the best I had ever had.

by inlandempiregirl

Christy Woolum 

Near the Window: An Original Poem

Near the Window

The lamp near the window glowed long into the night,

the wonder of words kept me turning the pages.

Curling up with Nancy Drew, Bess, and George

created a life of intrigue and mysteries to be solved.

Finding poetry at the public library and saving words

as I hunted and pecked on the manual keys.

The stereo filled the hall room with beautiful sounds.

I wore out certain songs as I listened again and again.

I joined the Broadway cast of My Fair Lady and Oklahoma too,

and The Ray Conniff singers backed my up on Somewhere My Love.

How many times could I repeat Three Dog Night singing One

While belting out the lyrics with a makeshift microphone?

Near the window I could breathe in spring,

In winter the panes frosted, then melted in a thaw.

If opened in summer a breeze gave a small reprieve,

Burning leaves crept in at the closing of fall.

The neighbor kids gathered for Kick the Can or Spoons, but

 I cocooned myself in my bedroom upstairs.

Finding comfort near the window with my pile of books

Broadway seemed visible, images from poems remained.

I didn’t pine away about a misspent youth.

I still carry the words and remember the poetry,

And l hear those melodies when I

sit near the window in my childhood room.

by inlandempiregirl

Christy Woolum

Spring

Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as spring—   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;   Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy?   A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,   Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Genius by Billy Collins

Genius 
by Billy Collins

was what they called you in high school
if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall
and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door
you would be known as Einstein,
who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone
who could take a sliver of chalk and square pi
a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or someone painting on his back on a scaffold,
or a man drawing a waterwheel in a margin,
or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,
I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir
were the true geniuses,

the ones who had figured out how to fly,
how to be both beautiful and brutal,
and how to mate for life.

Twenty-four geniuses in all,
for I numbered them as Yeats had done,
deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface--

forty-eight if we count their still reflections,
or an even fifty if you want to toss in me
and the dog running up ahead,

who were smart enough to be out
that morning--she sniffing the ground,
me with my head up in the light morning breeze.

One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.   by Elizabeth Bishop

The Things

The Things
by Donald Hall

When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore—
that I've cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial—a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother's rocker,
a dead dog's toy—valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother's souvenirs of trips
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.