like a brush fire scorching the land,
old folks just smolder in their skin;
a skin that is soft but from being hard
for so many years of a tough life-lived.

as 1890s turned slowly into 1930, the poor
stayed poor, and chopped cotton, ate dirt;
scrabble was not a game, instead a way of life.
i hold all my wishes for one day when i grin

at them from across a slatted bed filled
with cotton, and dearth of hopes; a Mama,
babe, kids, Granpa, Grama under a shotgun roof.
heated and cooled by half-hearted dreams.

two sack dresses hung in a corner closet
made of wire strung between the walls;
his overalls didn't jangle with coins,
moonshine on Saturdays eased the pain

of reality of appearingly a flat earth.

06/07/2011

Author's Note: the pics on clara mae gregory's journal draw at meheart. this could easily be my great-grandparents[dirt farming sharecroppers] and the sharecropping was passed to my grandparents. life is hard, not simple.

Posted on 06/08/2011
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