Find the poem, Herr Pat or re-write it. What a hoot!
Bill
> On 22 Jan 2015, at 8:08 pm, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Enjoyed this warm tale oops nearly wrote tail -and to think that I was a top
> speller at school -(long long since)
> I lost my grandmother early on was devastated for years-I remember but
> probable can't fine a WW2 poem about us together-where the aircraft I was
> cheering on were actually German and I got hauled back into our air-raid
> shelter! Cheers P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Max Richards
> Sent: 21 January 2015 18:26
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: 'At Grandma's'
>
> At Grandma's
>
> While I mow her unit's lawns,
> Grandma bakes fruit scones.
>
> (This was the push-mower-
> with-grass-catcher era.)
>
> I bike here from school
> to her back shed - not a tool
>
> in it beside the mower
> and rusting hedge-clippers.
>
> She'd moved here, widowed,
> from a two-bedroom 'State
>
> house' when Granddad died.
> What a great send-off he'd had -
>
> pall-bearers from Parliament,
> a Maori MP in chief's cloak.
>
> I wasn't there - merely Dad, only
> son, with his two sisters. They
>
> minded Grandma, helped her
> move along the tram route further,
>
> maybe three or four stops
> from our doctor and shops.
>
> She sings hymns, old favourites,
> 'The Lord's My Shepherd'
>
> is one I know. 'The Methodist
> Hymn Book' eked out with
>
> diddley-diddley-dee. Once
> Grandpa sang 'Silver Threads
>
> among the Gold', and she'd
> joined in. Now we heard Dad
>
> sing it teasingly for Mum,
> without her help. No voice,
>
> she'd say. Aunt Verna was
> the singer, a true soprano.
>
> 'Don't you go to church now, Grandma?'
> 'Just weddings and funerals, my dear.'
>
> Auckland's warm rains
> make grass grow year-round.
>
> Moist cut grass fragrant to the nose,
> heaped now under hydrangeas;
>
> sweltering in the far corner.
> My drink and buttered scone
>
> downed, it's back to the mower.
> Alone in the kitchenette
>
> Grandma is singing 'Safe in my
> Father's home' to the framed portrait
>
> of Michael Joseph Savage,
> saviour of the country,
>
> first Labour Prime Minister -
> 'applied Christianity'.
>
> As her late husband's grandson -
> indeed, the only one -
>
> I shall have to fill big boots -
> meanwhile wage war on green shoots.
>
> 'I'll need you again soon.'
> I hold out my palm - small coins -
>
> she folds my fingers over
> to prevent my counting until
>
> out her door and biking home.
> Rainclouds fill the sky beyond town.
>
> [Auckland 1951 / Seattle 2015]=
>
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