If She Hadn't Been So Busy

with the housework, her poems might have been better. Or at least, better constructed.

I felt the same way in college. I was always just about to get steeped in the material of one semester, when BANG! BOOM! I had to line up and sign up for the next round of classes. That was always extremely anxiety-provoking. I always felt there was not enough time for anything. Time will tell, Time has a big mouth, yeah, all right, but it wouldn't shut up and it just kep' on champin' at the bit and it just kep' on ringin'. So I never felt satisfied with what I was learning, or like I'd really ever absorbed it.

Come to find out I didn't learn SHIT in college. It was a big bureaucratic bottom-line bullshit JOKE. All they were interested in was moving us through the system, like a big bunch of cattle. Just like Frank Zappa said: If you want to get laid, go to college; if you want an education, go to the library.

They shoulda taught us how to turn turds into gold. All those sorority girls (I wasn't one) were spending so much time in the toilets anyway, throwing up so they could fit into their jeans and look good and catch a boy who looked rich, even though he probably wasn't as rich as he made out to be. That's what they all were doing there where I went to university. It was a big social game to see whose money was going to end up with whom and whose social-climbing stances would step to where. Someone told me the parents of those sorority and fraternity children would pour all this money into their children's clothes and cars and try to look as wealthy as possible, so their child would attract the wealthiest mate.

Works for some people, I suppose. But if they'd turned those little girls into alchemists instead, they coulda saved the world, instead of just procreating and worrying about where the money was gonna go.

So no wonder my great-great-grandmama's poems are just little pieces of fluff, for the most part, or dreary wailings about duty and shortcomings and going to heaven. She was TOO FUCKIN' BUSY WITH STUPID CRAPPY BUSY-WORK. She shoulda went on sabbatical and gotten some REAL work done.

Still and all, it's nice to have something from an ancestor. And I learned a few things from typing them. Here are more.

THE KITTENS

Two liittle black kittens--

Two little fellows;

White kittie, Gray kittie--

Such playful fellows!

Roly poly, little kits,

Catching at strings;--

Little Mabel laughs in glee

At the silly things.

Hist! They'r off! Hide away!

Here comes doggie, Snip!

See his teeth, hear him growl!

Hie! All the kitties skip!

"EAGLE EYE"

On his pony he loves so well,

"Eagle Eye," the Indian brave,

Scans each plain and hill and dell,

For his life he now much save

From the haunts where dangers dwell.

Always hunting, always sad;

From his wigwam going far,

Bringing meat to papoose tad;

Watching moon and watching star,--

Why is he not always glad?

Divinity Hall,

Lebanon Tennessee, December ..., 1906.

(Well with the way we treated the native Americans when we got here, is it any wonder. Great-Great-Grandmama, you might not have known the half of it. Then again, you might have. I don't know what she knew. She might only be hinting at the oppression and atrocities and genocides that happened, in this little diddle of a poem.)

STRAY BITS OF VERSE

_____*____*___

The gray blue of the sky,

The sunny mountain tops,

The nesting birds a-fly

With jubilant song of May,

Calling sweet Summer night;

And this does fly away

Each hour full of care,

With rush of early day,

'Till close of dusky night,

Tho' fain we'd bid them stay.

--May 14, 1918.

66666666666666

Four little kittens all in a row,

Dimple and Dot, Mischief and Snow,

Rolling and romping--tumbling--they go.--

"Scat!" They are gone, where, you do not know.

____________

WONDER.

The night is bright, the moon is high--

Majestic, sails in darkened sky;

The stars down look, with winking eye,

In sparkling glitter, asking why

Poor mortals ever--always--sigh,

Contentious with all others vie

To do the work, or never try,

Knowing all men are born to die.

(Those poems are by my great-great-grandmother, Emma Gardner Hall. And now we have a poem by my great-great-grandfather, James Hugh Blair Hall.

YOUTH--MANHOOD--AGE.

--o--

Youth is a silvery pleasure boat,

At Life's gay sailing-port a-float,

On waveless, sunlit, silvery sea,

Beneath a silvery, sun-kissed sky,

Ere yet the regal voyage be,

Or he the bright moorings fly.

Manhood real is "a man-of-war,"

On Life's glorious voyage a-far,

On heaving, rolling, storm-swept sea,

Beneath a storm-filled sky,

Ere he near the fair haven be,

Or cease the engines to ply.

Christ-like age is a golden boat,

At Life's glad anchoring-port a-float,

On waveless, sunlit, golden sea,

Beneath a sun-filled, golden sky,

Ere yet the greater voyage be,

Or he the blest moorings fly.

--Papa

(Well that one's kinda pretty. Someone had written little numbers, 3, 1 and 2, over the words "cease the engines" in the second verse above. Do they signify musical notes of a scale, perhaps? Was this a song? I don't know why the numbers are there.)

(Now more poems from Emma Gardner Hall.)

A SHORT STORY

A silly little gray goose,

By her fond mother let loose,

Began t once to wander:

Before her little head could think,

Before her mother's eye could wink,

She was old Mistress Gander!

WHERE THE SEASONS MEET

The golden rod,

A smile of God,

Blossoms to-day,

Along my way.

I know full well,

She comes to tell

Summer has fled,

The flowers are dead.

Dear Autumn's here,

Our eyes to cheer:

Where'er we turn,

Her glories burn.

'Neath her footprints,

In richest tints,

Will forests gleam,

Will dimple stream--

Earth Eden be,

Men Heaven see;--

The sapphire throne,

And Him thereon.

(Well if Earth is so beautiful, then why be greedy for Heaven? Ahh, I suppose there is always somewhere better to go...maybe that's why the brain wants to bushier dendrites the while...or why some people's telomeres are shorter than others...so they can go to Heaven quicker...I doubt my great-great-granny had ever heard of telomeres. But one never knows.)

THE CHILD AND THE VIOLET.

Sweet, pretty little violet,

Blooming in the sun,

Would you not be happier

If you could only run?

Just laugh and be so jolliful,

Play dollies every day.

Oh! isn't this a happy world,

When you can run and play?

O, no, my little maiden,

To run is not for me;

I want to stand here very still,

While breezes kiss me, see?

I want the rain, the dewdrops cool,

To kiss me as they fall,

They make me love the happy world;

I bloom at their loved call.

But wouldn't you, my beauty,

Like a dress like mine?

See, it's soft and clingy,

Golden as sunshine.

No, my little, sweet one,

My dress of lovely hue,

I copied from the sky above:

Blue means you're ever true.

(Ahem. The color blue, in French medieval poetry, does signify fidelity. That comes down a loooooong, long way. This was one tidbit I picked up before getting kicked out of the master's program at THE University of Alabama, with its glorious-smelling sorority-house bathrooms all strewn with the beautiful aura of vomit. Yes I'm bitter; no I do NOT have a totally and completely thankful and grateful heart; yes I have to work on this, really hard; yes you WANT to see my sarcasm and my bitterness and my dark side and my scratching and clawing; yes your bloodthirstiness is SHOWING...no you are NOT the happy little Pollyanna you wish to be...and neither am I, except sometimes, maybe, and I have to force it much of the time. And I bet YOU do, too! Unless you really are one of those sanguine types...and there's some more literature trivia for ya)

(And now back to Beauty)

Well, let me kiss you, Violet,

Just as the breezes do;

I wish you many happy days;

And I, content as you.

(There. A nice happy ending.)

THE HANDCLASP

"Mamma, O mamma,"

A baby voice cried,

From out the darkness,

On his cot near her side.

"Please hold my hand, mamma;

Come close to me:

The dark is so dark

I never can see."

Mother clasped the wee fingers,

Close drew him to her heart:

Then of Sweet Dreamland

He again seemed a part.

A swift prayer to Heaven:

"O Father, may he

Reach out of life's shadow

To clasp hands with Thee."

Lebanon, Tennessee,

December 18, 1906.

(Clever. Ninety-two years later, in 1998, I married a man in New Orleans on this same date.)

A LITTLE GIRL'S PLEA

My bedroom's dark, for it is night.--

"Please, Jesus, watch by me;

I've tried to be just good like Thou;

I'm scared, 'cause I cannot see.

"I know You see me all the time,

When I am good or bad;

I'm just a little girl, You know.

Please watch me, I'll be so glad.

"Please send an angel down to keep

The things away that scare;

I love You more and more each day,

Try to be good because You care."