"Grandma"

Reposting this poem I wrote a few years back.  It is a fictional poem, one I wrote after driving through Tennessee in December - this homestead "spoke" to me.

Grandma

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  -Maya Angelou

Like grandma’s shawl, the old, worn farmhouse 

tucked into Appalachia's hills always gave me comfort, 

even when spring rains flooded the stream bed, 

more than once licked it’s wet, swollen tongue along the rear porch. 

Black snakes and such slithered from beneath 

seeking higher ground; even the goats and mules

grazed their way up pasture hills.  Frightened me near to death

but Grandma always said, “Have faith” and I swear

if the waters didn’t recede.  Secretly I likened her to Moses,

as at her word, miracles seemed to happen. 

The one Christmas I stayed with Grandma, 

she collected pine boughs, wove them together, 

draped long looping swags across the warped wooden house,
hummed a mix of hymns as she lit single candles 

in each window.  

Beneath thousands of twinkling stars, 
we stood on the winding, dirt road that ribboned past her farmstead

and admired the holiest of nights, Grandma’s threadbare shawl 

securely wrapped about us both.

by Margaret Bednar, December 28

This is written for "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Play it Again".  I selected "A Gift of Wisdom from Maya Angelou"   

Also linked with "Poets United - Pantry of Poetry and Prose #8" on December 15, 2019