—Poetry by Kimberly Bolton, Jefferson City, MO
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Way in the back country of Missouri,
In the middle of nowhere,
Set deep in a valley surrounded by trees,
And the hump-backed hills of the Ozarks,
Some rogue ancestor of mine discovered
Just the right spot alongside a creek
To set up a grist mill.
Once the mill was up and running,
A general store was built,
Then, a one-room schoolhouse,
And a church.
Here’s the church and here’s the steeple,
Open the door and there’s the people.
Somehow folks found their way here
To this little valley in the middle of nowhere.
Guided by some pioneering instinct,
Or an internal GPS, they came.
They came by horse and wagon,
Deciding this was as good a place as any
To settle.
The ax bit into the bark of the tree,
And the labor of hard work and hardship began,
The iron bedstead host to the first breath,
And to the last,
And in between, their lives carved out of the furrows in the field,
Family histories pieced in patchwork with quaint titles:
Log Cabin, Wedding Ring, Friendship, and Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
Here, in the middle of nowhere,
The matriarchs of my family were born and raised.
Here, they were married and buried.
Here, their children were home-grown.
This little valley in the middle of nowhere
Was all these women knew of life.
Set in their ways, many of them never left,
Nor contemplated leaving.
Set in its way, this middle-of-nowhere valley
Lies rich and fallow
Within my soul.
Way in the back country of Missouri,
In the middle of nowhere,
Set deep in a valley surrounded by trees,
And the hump-backed hills of the Ozarks,
Some rogue ancestor of mine discovered
Just the right spot alongside a creek
To set up a grist mill.
Once the mill was up and running,
A general store was built,
Then, a one-room schoolhouse,
And a church.
Here’s the church and here’s the steeple,
Open the door and there’s the people.
Somehow folks found their way here
To this little valley in the middle of nowhere.
Guided by some pioneering instinct,
Or an internal GPS, they came.
They came by horse and wagon,
Deciding this was as good a place as any
To settle.
The ax bit into the bark of the tree,
And the labor of hard work and hardship began,
The iron bedstead host to the first breath,
And to the last,
And in between, their lives carved out of the furrows in the field,
Family histories pieced in patchwork with quaint titles:
Log Cabin, Wedding Ring, Friendship, and Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
Here, in the middle of nowhere,
The matriarchs of my family were born and raised.
Here, they were married and buried.
Here, their children were home-grown.
This little valley in the middle of nowhere
Was all these women knew of life.
Set in their ways, many of them never left,
Nor contemplated leaving.
Set in its way, this middle-of-nowhere valley
Lies rich and fallow
Within my soul.
DIRT AND STONE
This dirt under our feet is where they stood
A hundred years ago or more,
This land where the wild sheep sorrel grows,
And the sycamore and oak.
They scratched out a living from this dirt,
Got dirt under their fingernails,
In the folds of their sun-weathered skin,
And the ache in the back bending over the rhubarb,
And potatoes, and cabbage.
Their dreams were little bigger than what could glean
From their gardens.
Houses and barns long since fallen in to disrepair,
As if the very weight of their dreams
Had caused them to collapse into exhaustion.
The land takes back what belongs to it by rights,
Having survived the plow and pioneer stubbornness.
Stone is what the land offers up now they are gone.
Stones and the wild cabbage roses my grandmother favored.
This dirt under our feet is where they stood
A hundred years ago or more,
This land where the wild sheep sorrel grows,
And the sycamore and oak.
They scratched out a living from this dirt,
Got dirt under their fingernails,
In the folds of their sun-weathered skin,
And the ache in the back bending over the rhubarb,
And potatoes, and cabbage.
Their dreams were little bigger than what could glean
From their gardens.
Houses and barns long since fallen in to disrepair,
As if the very weight of their dreams
Had caused them to collapse into exhaustion.
The land takes back what belongs to it by rights,
Having survived the plow and pioneer stubbornness.
Stone is what the land offers up now they are gone.
Stones and the wild cabbage roses my grandmother favored.
THE INFINITESIMAL
My grandmother was nearly ninety when she died,
Her white hair, the rounded hump between her shoulders,
Her rheumy, watery eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses,
Proof enough of griefs I did not come to understand
Until I grew to be half her age,
And she dead more than thirty years on.
My grandmother’s hands were testament
To the life she had lived,
Having plied needles to quilts by lantern light,
Breaking ice in the water bucket on cold winter mornings,
Chopping firewood, pulling weeds from the garden,
Scrubbing laundry on the washboard until her hands
Were red and raw,
Calloused hands that soothed a child’s fever,
or wrung the scrawny neck of a chicken
for the frying pan.
Having endured hardships and more losses
Than she cared to remember,
My grandmother, like the women of her era,
Possessed within themselves the innate intuition
Of how fragile life was,
And so did not take for granted what little happiness
Showed up on their doorstep:
The smell of spring breaking through a winter-weary earth,
A newborn calf dogging its mother’s heels across the field,
A husband who brought home his pay instead of wasting it
On moonshine and poker up in the hills,
A mulberry tree in bloom,
And the birds that nested in among its leaves,
A child that lived to adulthood,
The simple pleasure of searching for spring greens
Along the creek bank,
A son who came home from the war . . .
All these blessings and more under heaven,
She cherished in her heart,
With the sure knowledge that tiny and insignificant as we are
In this world,
We are blessed to feel the momentous in the infinitesimal.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison
_____________________
—Medusa, thanking Kimberly Bolton for today’s colorful cowgirl-poetry stories of pioneer life!
My grandmother was nearly ninety when she died,
Her white hair, the rounded hump between her shoulders,
Her rheumy, watery eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses,
Proof enough of griefs I did not come to understand
Until I grew to be half her age,
And she dead more than thirty years on.
My grandmother’s hands were testament
To the life she had lived,
Having plied needles to quilts by lantern light,
Breaking ice in the water bucket on cold winter mornings,
Chopping firewood, pulling weeds from the garden,
Scrubbing laundry on the washboard until her hands
Were red and raw,
Calloused hands that soothed a child’s fever,
or wrung the scrawny neck of a chicken
for the frying pan.
Having endured hardships and more losses
Than she cared to remember,
My grandmother, like the women of her era,
Possessed within themselves the innate intuition
Of how fragile life was,
And so did not take for granted what little happiness
Showed up on their doorstep:
The smell of spring breaking through a winter-weary earth,
A newborn calf dogging its mother’s heels across the field,
A husband who brought home his pay instead of wasting it
On moonshine and poker up in the hills,
A mulberry tree in bloom,
And the birds that nested in among its leaves,
A child that lived to adulthood,
The simple pleasure of searching for spring greens
Along the creek bank,
A son who came home from the war . . .
All these blessings and more under heaven,
She cherished in her heart,
With the sure knowledge that tiny and insignificant as we are
In this world,
We are blessed to feel the momentous in the infinitesimal.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison
_____________________
—Medusa, thanking Kimberly Bolton for today’s colorful cowgirl-poetry stories of pioneer life!
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
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work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
