They were the first books from memories’ beginnings;
even the Bible Storybook followed after.
A sentimental claim could have saved them, ensured
their survival from crazy mother fire she flung
to send her gelatinous demons home to Hell
from the closet shared with the stacked, forgotten books.
With them flamed up my pre-school doodles penciled on
endpapers. The text pages, slick as ice, rebuffed
pencil’s reticent lead, while end sheets craved caress.
Too pristine; stiff covers of muted blues and grays,
greens, even reds; inside: over-exposed pictures
of breeds of hogs, cattle, fowl…crop rotation charts
that, I would swear, were never glimpsed before my eyes.
We never talked of books or little else; always
at work even when sick (coming home pale to fall,
“burning-up” to his hard bed). He would never read
his “farm books” bought by Uncle Sam as his reward
for surviving battlefields in France, Belgium;
in tiny towns…only words… he struggled to say.
What was an Alabama boy who barely read
to do, but wed the pretty girl waiting back home,
and care for cotton, corn, durocs, chickens and kids?
Tenant farming fail through. Mother still talks of wind
blowing bitter cold up through floorboard cracks and the
silent rat snake, “This long!” falling from the attic’s
dark scary hole to hit the kitchen floor, plop!
beside her as she churned butter for our cornbread.
(Only Sunday she had prayed for just an onion
to eat with beans and the last of the “side meat.”)
Poor snake, more startled than she, died a riving death
by her cotton chopping hoe, twisting till sunset.
Daddy, too gentle, kind…always the provider,
“too good for his own good”, delivered milk or bread
or pumped gas always smiling the rest of his life;
accepting grueling hours like penitence…for what?
The books?
Still I summon the scent and feel of their dated
knowledge and hope gone stale. I remember, it was
mother’s suggestion, her offering to me, to draw
in Daddy’s books.
Belated Words 