Frogs

Way down the holler
Down yonder over
The hill behind the house
Is a stream
Swampy all round
Cattails stand tall but
Dead from last year
Green shoots just risin'
Along the banks.
Sittin' on the back porch
You can listen
Real quiet like
And hear them
Shh, do you hear them?
Little ol' frogs
Just a peepin'
Voices like rusty hinges
Singin' a love song
Singin' of spring.

Stubborn Spring

Nearly here,
Stubborn spring
Clings to the skirts
Of Winter.
Dragging snow
And cold
Back again
And Again.
Hiding here
In flowerbeds
Daring daffodils
To push through
Whispering lies
Of cold
And frostbite
In the ears
Of silly bulbs.

As I Ramble

Ah dear cousin,
I have not had opportunity to write in a while.  I shall seek to remedy that this week, but since you are here, sit a spell and lets just talk for a while.  Sit and watch the morning mist burn away in the small heat of the March sun.  It will burn quickly in a month or so, but just now it lingers and swirls quietly as the sun wastes it away.  Sit with me on the porch, rock in an old rocker, older than you or me and made by an ancestor over 100 years ago.

Today I feel ancient, though I am not nearly so.  I will be 54 on Friday, dear cousin.  I do not feel any older than I did 20 years ago, but time does not stand still, nor does it lie.  So much has changed, yet I feel the same.  I wish that I could go, run just now to the hills of home and spend the week in the shadows of the mountains for a few days, letting my spirit drink in the beauty of the hills I love.  I wish I could spend the last days of my 53rd year walking down dusty roads to see old cabins with tin roofs, hear worn out ol' hound dogs bay and call to me as I come close to homesteads warm with the welcome heat of wood stoves.  Now and again cousins would invite me in for coffee and perhaps even lunch.  I'd be pleased with just a baloney sandwich on white bread, but might be tempted and delighted with soup beans or fried ham.

I thought this week about older men and why they chase young women as they do.  Not that I do or would.  Oh My Darlin' is soul mate and treasure to me.  I wonder if they refuse to see themselves age in the mirror, feel as I do, that they haven't really aged in the last 20 or thirty years?  I wonder if they pursue younger and younger women and girls to try and reflect how they want to be, how they feel inside?  I wonder if it is a race away from aging and an attempt to be forever young?  Or perhaps it is just the old bull, trying to remain supreme and challenging the young bulls by claiming as much of the herd of beautiful women for himself, thus declaring supremacy?

Or perhaps they are just old perverts!!!

I wish I could sit on the porch of home this week and wait for company, watching to road in the evening for someone to stop with a cake, or maybe a jar of sourwood honey to wish me Happy Birthday and sit for a while, talking some but mostly just rockin' and watchin' the mist as it burns away real slow like.

Just So

Old man sits
Rocks now
And again.
Warm fire
Front of him
Old dog
Sittin'
Side of him.
Life's just right
As it is.

Quilt Night

Quilt night
Good night to snuggle
Next to your darlin'
Sink deep
Into a feather bed
It puffs up
Round you
Wrappin' y'all
In warm security.
Howl wind, howl
Scream round us
Shriek loud
Hateful Winter.
For we are warm
And do not care.