My Mother Spoke of Tiny Towns

My Mother Spoke of Tiny Towns

My mother spoke of tiny towns
As though they were rich jewels sprinkled amid
The hardscrabble farms,
where bent, weathered men in ragged straw hats and dusty bib overalls
would follow their two tired, dutiful horses
in an endless round of boustrephedon, spring and fall.
She spoke of evenings in Marseilles, pronounced
In a very Ohio, un-French way,
a place as far from it’s famous namesake
in spirit as in distance
As it is to a star;
She spoke of the beau she had in Green Camp
A charming rogue she met at a church social one night,
And how he so shamelessly flirted with her
Despite the frowns of parents and preacher;
She spoke of the fun of the times at Big Island
And the dancing, deliriously twirling her skirts
Laughing in the arms of some handsome farm boy;
And how naughty she was to steal away
Her sister’s boyfriend, just to show she could.
It was-is-hard to think of her as young, full of life.
Only on those rare times when, sleepy, I would lay on the couch
And she would sit across the room in her big easy chair
Eyes alight, face soft with memory
As she talked of the wonder of being a girl.
Usually, uncomprehending, full of the ignorance of youth,
I would only half listen, sometimes even doze
As she poured out the happiness of her life, the sweet, precious vintage,
Of summers long past, of people long gone,
of jealousies long forgotten, loves now only names
carved on headstones in country graveyards.
Only the litany of those tiny towns now remains to me,
Her poignant legacy, jewels strung on an antique necklace of memory.

c. 2005
Gerald A. Jennings


c. 2000, G. Jennings