Poem: The Mad Old Woman of Kimball Hill
Three o’ clock.
Wind falls in torrents
Nor’easters crashing
Bearing on their dark wings
Snow and vapours.
Sitting within
Doll in hand
Cocoa in mug, mug on board on lap
Old woman whistling
‘ADAMS the man of our choice, guards the helm
‘No tempest can harm us, no storm overwhelm:
‘Our sheet anchor’s sure
‘And our bark rides secure,
‘So here’s to the toast
‘We Columbians boast,
‘The Federal Constitution, and the President forever.’
Told me she was
Born in Boston in the late
Days of Honey Fitz
Grew up on a farm
Out in New Hampshire
Digging rutabagas
Summer in, summer out
Her hands chapped and cracked
The tips of her fingers torn.
Married, they said
A cocksure Ohioan
Moved out by Lake Erie
Worked on some canal
Riveted battleships
To beat down old Adolf
Had seven children
(Some say eight, with one stillbirth)
Voted for Stevenson
Then Eisenhower
Then Stevenson again
(Though he wasn’t running.)
Returned to New England
Crocheted all day long.
Later on, seasons by
Past winter, recalled spring,
Out summer, autumn coming on,
Fall leaves
The a-frame house rickety
By the great apple orchards
Up West Hill Road.
She puts out a pumpkin
From a patch out in Newfane
Makes a curse doll, a hex sign, mixes herbs and spices
‘Come on, come on!
‘The peppermint tea
‘Ain’t drinking itself!
‘What a handsome young boy.’
Springtime
On a shelf there’s a book
Printed in London
During the reign
Of Edward the Seventh
Taken to America
Bearing some sort of ‘wisdom’
From the Theosophists, maybe, or the Golden Dawn
Or maybe just one of the Christian
Writers of those times.
Probably the Christian.
She goes off to church
With offerings for the parson
Blackberries, ice cream,
Gardening tools, bullets
And comes back with a bushel of palm fronds.
‘What are you going to do with palm fronds?’
‘Hell if I know.
‘They’re pretty.
‘Ain’t getting any younger.
‘If I’m not pretty, at least the palm fronds are.’
‘I’d like to go visit Mexico.’
‘Baby’s hungry and the money’s all gone
‘The folks back home don’t want to talk on the phone.
‘She gets a long letter…’
‘You’re too old to visit Mexico.’
She smirks, but not as Emperors smirk
Her parched lips curling up rose-coloured
Over teeth like ancient book-paper
With some alleged wisdom
Coming from one supposedly wise
But really no more wise and
No less wise
Than the bobolink she started shooting at
One morning out in the meadows.
(‘Why the Hell was grandma out in the meadows?’)
It does not take long to
Lay on the line, as wisdom goes.
‘Careful now.’
This old granny wants you to take it easy.
If you are very lucky
You, too, can, in your old age
Go to the puppet theatre
And dry herbs that you never use
And say hello to the parson
And shoot at random birds
And watch Arthur with
An ‘honorary great-grandson’
And be a mad old woman
Of more use, with more honour
Than ten thousand sane young men.