The View from Grandma's Kitchen

Athens, Georgia

October 22, 2014

Day after faithful day 

Grandmother Gilmore rose before dawn 

in a tiny log home, carved into Carolina woods.

Grandpa sleeps 

as she tiptoes to 

her snug kitchen, warm as a womb 

standing by the iron-stained sink 

looking out 

on a weathered well-house 

hard by the side yard oak 

hemmed in by hickory 

flanked by the forest 

in darkness beyond. 

Night softens, coffee perks and oats congeal 

as she stirs and hums her Gospel songs - 

Maxwell House 

Quaker Oats 

and Precious Lord would see her through. 

Did she dream of their life in the city again? 

She lived high on the hog 

for a Hickerson girl 

till God laughed and times turned - 

the good life got away again.

With Peace in the Valley 

the black night recedes 

through shadows and gray 

to one more day much like the last. 

The mama cat 

would be hungry again 

so she scrapes a plate of table scraps 

to place beside the back porch step 

with a dish of milk 

for the kittens to lap.

She butters another pan biscuit 

for the faraway grandchild hovering 

by the kitchen table 

carried aloft 

on comic book dreams. She pours his juice 

in a jelly jar as he bides his time 

to warmth of day 

to find his own way 

through the woods and the fields 

through the toils and the snares 

till he no longer hears 

her own voice in his mind.

But memory bears her blessed assurance 

from over the Jordan in Beulah Land. 

So I rise in the darkness 

a half century on, still humming 

her early morning song, still dreaming 

my way through the vastness beyond 

but perking and stirring a day like the last. 

Here is a link to "Grandpa Gilmore Left Me a Poem"

Jean Hickerson Gilmore and her daughter, Ruth