What The Walls Forgot
Her voice banished walls, and "coyotee" calls
Would wash newer noises away;
I'd hear eagles scream, and mountains would gleam,
On different horizons each day.
Revived by her words, the buffalo herds
Again roamed the prairie she knew;
Were slaughtered again, plain seeded to grain,
When "sodbustin' farmers" came through.
She often retold how "Charlie" was bold
Enough to set blooded studs free;
To join a wild bunch, 'cause he had a hunch,
Their "get" would remount cavalry.
They could have sold more, "come the Civil War"
But left a seed herd running free;
And "Young Bob" wed my grandma instead,
And started his own "fambily".
A found "massacree' became real to me
As things she kept on her shelves;
Her stories went on, but wilderness gone,
The plains were like ghosts of themselves.
When pierced by the rails paralleling old trails
That horses bestowed on the West;
And worst yet fenced, the prairie commenced,
"Tuh shrivel and shrink", like the rest.
Then she'd story North, whee they had gone forth
On a quest for more untamed land;
Of Alaska, and how they'd gone on,
To the Yukon's promising sand.
The mustangers died, but seed scattered wide
Carried on in a world they spurned;
Where wild things are lost, and few heed the cost
Of values we see overturned.
What I am today, I owe in some way
To stories she pulled from the gloom;
To cowboys and kin who lived once again,
When the walls forgot Grandmother's room.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Posted: Apr 2011
About this poem:
The memories shared to me by a great-grandparent.
Comments (8)
A rattling good yarn, pacey and attention holding right to the end...
Regards
Bill x
The poet you speak of sounds familiar. Glad you liked this one.
I'm glad you enjoyed this one.
Glad you liked this. :)
lovelly to see you
Soph