—Poems by Kimberly Bolton, Jefferson City, MO
—Anonymous Photos
—Anonymous Photos
COULDN’T FIND IT IF YOU WAS TO LOOK FOR IT
It ain’t nothin’ but a wide spot in the road.
Couldn’t find it if you was to look for it.
If you’re out drivin’ around these parts,
and happen to come through say at fifty
miles per, and blink your eyes, well, you’ve
missed it.
Still, it’s a pretty lil’ place.
Always was, no matter the time of year.
Ain’t hard to find if you growed up out
there, mind you.
Even if you moved away—and lots of folks
did after a while—
And even if you wasn’t to come back for
forty years or so,
You still might could find the old home
place, just by followin’ the dirt roads in your
head.
City folks, now, out takin’ a jaunt in the
countryside to see how the other half lives,
well, they’d have a hard time locatin’ it.
They just might run into the place by
accident, sure, but they won’t find it any
other way, and that’s all there is to it.
I ‘spect that’s how the first pioneers outta
Tennessee and the Carolinas found the place
to begin with, by accident.
They come through the Cumberland Gap,
most of ‘em, in their covered wagons and
such.
Came on out here to Missouri and kept
travelin’ westward, til they come down
through the foothills and into the open
valley.
Wasn’t lookin’ for it, I’ll wager.
Probably wouldn’t have found it if they had
been,
but it’s where they decided to call home.
MARRIAGE
The first time she came to this little shot-gun shanty
She was already in the family way.
Harry carried her across the threshold more for custom’s sake
Than wedded bliss.
He set her on her feet and they both got to work,
Believing in something back then.
Over the years, Harry plowed the landscape of her body
Same way he plowed those fields out there, with due diligence
And no emotion to spare.
It got so Corrie resigned herself to the sound of his denim overalls
Hitting the floor beside the bed at night.
She knew by next morning she’d be pregnant again.
Even so, they still believed in something, though that belief began to waver
On the horizon because there was always another horizon behind that one and
Another beyond that.
And what happiness bloomed now and again, desperation was always at the calyx of it.
They both kept at their marriage the way they kept at the land,
Out of sheer contrariness.
Harry out in the fields reaping what he wasn’t taking to market,
Just to feed the hunger that had them by the belly.
Corrie stabbing at the dirt with her hoe, like she was stabbing at the hardship
That was their life.
They lived, it seemed, by the devil’s own luck,
And it was getting harder to believe any good could come out of
This hardscrabble life,
As the cradle filled each year, the rocking chair wearing a groove
Into the sagging floor.
Corrie remembered how just that afternoon,
Standing at the window above the kitchen sink,
She watched Harry come in from the fields,
All raw-boned and long shadow,
Making slow progress toward the house, oblivious to the grasshoppers
Jumping out of his way.
His broad shoulders bowed under the ache of the sun,
His lantern-jawed visage hidden by the wide bill of his cap.
And watching him, Corrie felt a cold finger trace down her spine,
Making her shiver despite the heat and humidity.
Someone walking over her grave?
Or his?
This was the thing she believed in now after all these years of marriage:
Life itself was a near-death experience.
THE COW
It was that Jersey cow what saved
her and them younguns.
Corrie bought it in ‘thirty-nine,
right after ole Harry done hisself in,
and that insurance man from over in
Boonville doctored the form so she
could git the insurance money.
Six hundred dollars was what she got
to buy the farm and that cow with.
‘Course, she had them chickens too,
what the bank done forgot to take
along with the rest-a the stock.
Harry wasn’t even cold in the ground
before they come ‘round collectin’
what was owed.
Corrie May didn’t bother to remind
‘em neither, about them chickens.
Her boy, Charlie, had done raised
them pullets hisself, and it woulda
broke his heart to give ‘em up.
So, she packed up Charlie, and the
chickens,
them two older boys and that girl of
hers,
and they lit out for Cotton.
Corrie May bought the cow same
time she laid down money for that
broke down ole farmhouse up Maxey
Branch.
Pert near took ever penny of that six
hundred dollars.
But the smartest thing she did was
buy that cow.
Aw, we all though it a durn shame
what Harry done,
leavin’ her and them kids to go
through it by theirselves,
but it was the Depression, and poor
was poor.
Aint no rich folk around Cotton, not
then and not now.
Poor was poor, as I said, and we
didn’t know no different.
Times was hard, and more’n one
man left his family stranded
one way or t’other.
But we all knew Corrie May. She
was one of our own.
She was a right smart woman, if I do
say so myself.
Bought that Jersey cow so there was
milk for the girl, and butter and
cottage cheese.
She put the cream in a crock and
would hitch a ride up to Tipton to
sell to the cream’ry,
just to have a little money to put by.
She could of done better’n ole Harry,
and that’s the truth of it.
Ever-body said so.
Whatever else you might say about
her, the woman had gumption
when it come to takin’ care of her
own.
Yessirree-bob, it was that Jersey cow
what saved her.
______________________
Kimberly A. Bolton’s first book of poetry, entitled Folk, was published independently in 2018. She was also one of 43 poets worldwide to be published in PHS’s annual Yom Hashoah issue for 2019. Her narrative poem, "The Tale of Mercy Periwinkle", was presented as a theatrical production in the autumn of 2019. She lives in Jefferson City, Missouri near her beloved Missouri River. These poems are included in her independently published book, Folk.
Welcome to the Kitchen, Kimberly, and don’t be a stranger!
For up-coming poetry events in our area, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa, celebrating the creatures that save us ~
Wha-a-a-a-t?
—Anonymous Photo
—Anonymous Photo
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