08NOV25
a collection of stories
stories are gold
people long gone
they take their hold
our hearts they own
old familiar names
make us snicker
in our souls a flame
dances and flickers
told as funny
make us alive
the soul's honey
straight from the hive
as the words fall
refections in glory
we are all
a collection of stories
it makes bigfoot's eyes damp
says remembering is good
as he breaks camp
in the timber and woods
I am writing this post this morning in a holler in the beauty that the world calls Appalachia. It is my boyhood home. We walked these roads when they were dirt and gravel barefooted as children. I can remember my mom telling us the first morning after school ended to “Get out there and toughen up your feet.”
Maybe it is just me but it seems like that your heart beats just a little different when you return to the place where you were raised. Yesterday I spent approximately 4 hours talking with my aunt Ruth. She is the last of my mom’s siblings. My uncle Bob, uncle Mutt and my mom have all passed away in the last 13 years.
We spent some time talking about the stories that I knew. And even in those stories aunt Ruth would usually provide details and tidbits on the back story to make everything more understandable. I found myself saying either to her or to myself “Well that makes more sense now.” And then there were all the stories that I didn’t know. We cleared up some of the ways that people were related. We went over how we ended up having these relatives living and visiting from different states.
The well mannered chihuahua was still roaming the scene. But everyone tends to get overshadowed by my aunt Ruth’s great grandson Jack. I liked Jack before I had ever met him because my brother had already told me over the phone “Wait until you meet Jack.” He is a little boy with an exuberant smile and sparkly eyes that seems to be in a perpetually bubbly mood. I find it almost impossible to look at him and not smile. So no matter how much detail or minutia we got into in the family history Jack could be counted on to liven up the already lively conversation.
Part of this is to explain how I came up with today’s poem. If I could take a lesson from yesterday it might be to encourage you to take or make the time to make arrangements to talk with your older relatives about all of the stories.
I predict that you will have the time of your life. And that you will smile.