I came from a place of bean pots and tea pots
I love my trusty three-decade old crock pot
One holer, two holer, three holer, four
Another kind of pot, if your keeping score
Clay pots and tin pots not related to pot shots
Pot belly stoves found in old country stores
Soup pots, flower pots and pot holes galore
Cast iron, copper, stainless and Teflon
All make great pots and I could go on
Now there’s another pot staining our land
The stench of it all my nose can’t stand
It’s worse than a poop pot and I’m not a fan
My mama was a lady
the monitor of my day.
Poop was a word I seldom heard
and was not allowed to say.
Number one and number two,
we took to outdoor two-holer,
but I knew everybody did it,
even mom and my sis in her stroller.
Seagulls and crows are lucky.
they just do it on the fly.
Humans must clean the messes up
when they come to us from the sky.
We carry litter bags with us
when taking our dogs for a stroll.
We know that keeping the streets clean
should be everybody's goal.
Livestock owners are lucky.
They just pile it on the ground
where it turns into a rich compost
for which eager buyers abound
I wish I had known of that word
when I was a young girl, because
I could have told her I was making compost
just like everybody does..
I had an aunt and uncle
We called them Boo and Chew
They had ranch in West Texas
Where they grew a crop or two
They had no city water
A windmill was their thing
Summer is hot and dusty there
I swear it never rains
They had an outdoor toilet
A two holer, I recall
The building was kind of squatty
So the seats weren’t very tall
I saw Dad go in there
Heard a rumble and a roar
He had a question on his mind
When he came out the door
“What can you raise around here
Besides those sugar beets”
Chew said almost anything
“Then raise the toilet seats”
From within the frost frozen bare boarded shed
with its loosely hung zee braced door agape,
the spring light peeked.
Warming the woodsheds King pine planks,
toasting the ten penny nails,
popping the planks to a toe-stubbing height.
Door slamming dashes barefoot
through the obstacle course of cord, tinder, rake and hoe,
to the semi attached outhouse.
Drawers half down, butt bitten by March’s wind,
the two holer waits, lye bucket at the base.
Curled, yellow-brown, newspaper pages from 1890,
the shade of Uncle George’s pipe stained teeth, wiggle in the wind;
as do I when an updraft attempts to speed dry my bottom.
I make a half-assed mad dash to the kitchen door.
Half way there I stop awestruck
at the gapping door to the kitchen garden.
Raspberry red, tit tipped rhubarb buds and stalks,
warmed by the sheltered spring sun set my mouth to drool.
So stands, a waylaid girl child in transit.
SANDS OF TIME
My child the struggler-
Half-buried, sand-holer
From fractious family.
Each christmas hollowly
Joyless in the cold
Tracks in the snow,
A pointless journey
A useless straggler
My boy filled the void,
Though almost destroyed.
Controlling with care
And knowing when and where
Trying to survive
In that world half-alive
My man's half-drowned
In the sand pit around.
My wife seeks my pain
As each running grain
Pours back, fills the hole.
She rescues my soul.
From within the frost-frozen, bare-boarded, shed
within its loosely hung zee-braced door agape
the spring light peeked.
Warming the woodsheds King’s pine planks
toasting the ten penny nails
popping the planks to a toe-stubbing height.
Door slamming dashes through the obstacle course of cord,
tinder, rake and hoe;
to the semi attached outhouse.
Draws half down,
butt bitten by March’s wind;
the two holer waits, lye bucket at the base.
Curled, yellow-brown, newspaper pages from 1890,
the shade of Uncle George’s pipe stained teeth, wiggle in the wind;
as do I when with a holler as
breeze to bottom freeze dries.
A half flashed mad dash to the kitchen door
is halted; awestruck at the gapping door to the kitchen garden.
Raspberry-red, tit tipped rhubarb buds and stalks,
warmed by the sheltered spring sun;
set my mouth to drool.
A waylaid girl child in transit.