Poetry on a Red Dirt Road

I read a poem this week from Your Daily Poem, and memories rushed over me like creek water after a storm. So my post today is a few rambling thoughts from the past, along with Kay M. Sanders' wonderful poem.

My grandmother, the whole family called her Mama, lived on a red dirt road. Mama laughed a lot. I remember standing in her kitchen with my cousins, our greased hands pulling taffy until it turned white. Its sweet flavor was unlike any store-bought candy. Our mouths watered and our teeth stuck together. The only way out of that clench was to suck on the wad until you could pry your jaws apart.

Mama liked to show us how limber she was. She could put her palms on the floor without bending her knees even when she was in her sixties. She could write with her left hand as well as she could with her right. That's where I learned what ambidextrous meant.

She could often be found sitting at her old black upright piano, pounding out sixteen versions of "The Sweet Bye and Bye."

She was quite a lady and this poem made me think of her.

There's more Poetry Friday at Random Noodling.

Let Me Have That Red Dirt Road

by Kay M. Sanders

You can have this modern, cement bridge, with its supports and side rails,

the way it begins long before the creek comes into view

and continues long after the creek has been left behind.

Let me have that old plank bridge I feared as a child,

so close to the creek I could hear the water licking its lips,

see vines straggle from bent-over trees like an old man’s beard

dragging in his red-eye gravy.

A stylish brick church stands there now,

its windows stained and pure, organ throned on high,

the building humming an air-conditioned tune.

Peel away these brick additions and let me have

that old clapboard church encased within,

windows open to catch the breeze,

air filled with the rustle of funeral-home fans,

piano chords so lusty the vase of flowers marches

to Zion right along with the congregation.

Read the rest here.