Catskill Mountain Medicine Woman...

[Photo by BF]

Riding the roller coaster of mood swings, big time, I woke up this morning with poetry in my head...

Which IS how it is for me sometimes... weird though that might seem.

So, since I'm blogging (for better or worse) again, I'll treat you (or bore you) with this morning's (a work in progress) "gem."

Catskill Mountain Medicine Woman... [Early 20th Century]
..... A Tribute to my Grandmother

Grandma somehow knew
That a feather mattress
Tucked in the midst of chaos
Could be a little fluff
Of Heaven
Here on earth...

Surrounded as she was
By chickens on the outside
Mounds of newspapers on the inside
And ten times ten of cats
Country fat
Inside and out

And often
Crying...

Grandma somehow knew
In the midst of it all
That words matter
As much
As ginseng
Spider webs
And dandelion wine...

Even as she drifted on a cloud
Perhaps plucked
By her own hand...

Never having found a God
Nor church
That brought
Her comfort

On those cold nights
Of alone-ness
When the wind was sharp, and
The woodpile
Running low...

Grandma somehow knew
That we all try
And we all cry

For mother's milk
Though a cow's would do...

Until Grandpa smothered
From the weight of it all...
And the barn became
An battered image of
Despair...


Where is reason?
Where is rhyme?


As the passage of time
Planted a trailer
Where wonder
Once lived...

With blackberry bushes
Mountain laurel
And shame...


Where is loss?
Where is gain?


In those fields of eternity
Where grandma and grandpa
First kissed...
Birthed a vast brood
Of children...
Added me to this list...

Or tapestry of Whitman's
Shadow...
As he roamed
The "open road..."

Yes Grandma, I know...

Some spirts lead the way...
Some fall behind.

[Postscript: The collective greed of civilization touches every one of us
with a little fluff Of Heaven and a little taste of Hell...

I'm glad Grandma found a soft place to lay down...]

N.S.