Yesterday was Mothers' Day, which is why the Poetry Sunday offering is appearing on Monday. Did you call or visit your mother yesterday? You should have. Take it from me ... a day will come when you'll wish you had. The same goes for your grandmother, because she has a lot still to teach you ...
My Grandparents' Generation
by Faith Shearin
They are taking so many things with them:
their sewing machines and fine china,
their ability to fold a newspaper
with one hand and swat a fly.
They are taking their rotary telephones,
and fat televisions, and knitting needles,
their cast iron frying pans, and Tupperware.
They are packing away the picnics
and perambulators, the wagons
and church socials. They are wrapped in
lipstick and big band music, dressed
in recipes. Buried with them: bathtubs
with feet, front porches, dogs without leashes.
These are the people who raised me
and now I am left behind in
a world without paper letters,
a place where the phone
has grown as eager as a weed.
I am going to miss their attics,
their ordinary coffee, their chicken
fried in lard. I would give anything
to be ten again, up late with them
in that cottage by the river, buying
Marvin Gardens and passing go,
collecting two hundred dollars.
It's sometimes frightening to think that I'm the grandparent, and that there are a lot of things I know and have experienced that my grandchildren will never know or experience outside of a museum. Geez, sometimes I feel like a fossil ...
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
6 comments:
Bilbo, this was a nice, sad poem. I remember being fascinated with a rotary phone. Soon thecell phones that flip open will be a relic.
Our generation has seen so many changes, Bilbo, and I have some of those old relics around the house. My grandkids find them curious, but unimaginable in use. Great poem.
How many rotary phones do you need? Just kidding. I think I gave them all away. Maybe.
Times and things do change. Still, some of the old stuff evokes memories.
The rotary phones were durable.
Excellent poem. I often contemplate what has been lost as we gain all these new things. I also often think we were better off with many of those old ways.
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