If we'd lived in olden days
days of yore
the golden days
and I were a troubadour
I'd serenade you with my lute
unless I had a flute to toot
or go more than the extra mile
and sing a song to make you smile
not with the end of a lance
would I beg my lady's favour
but gallantly request a dance
mayhaps a carol we could savour
to fight and kill the dragon
and do it all with no fear
I'd pull Excalibur from the stone
for my dear Guinevere
In olden days, without TV
Or phone or laptop or PC,
I might have joined a quilting bee
To while away the time.
I’d sit with friends and we would sew,
Discussing all there was to know
And all our handiwork would show
We had no need for Prime.
And after we would laugh and chat,
The pure delight of chewing fat,
We’d stash our projects, knowing that
Our day had been sublime.
But even then, I’m pretty sure
As soon as I got home once more,
I’d sit and do what I adore,
Set down my daily rhyme.
In the year of 1967 I was a freshman
In high school in a small Midwest Iowa town.
Before teachers cared about bullying
and goofy stuff like kids’ feelings
We were not allowed to have them anyway back then
The gym teacher was snippy and mean.
Pinched nose, hair teased and sprayed
With enough hairspray to choke us all to death
She had beady eyes. I do not recall the color.
Never happy, snippy usually.
Cindy and Susie were always the basketball captains.
They were the giraffes of our class.
They chose us one at a time from a line.
My twin and I and our friend Debbie were always the last to be picked.
When they got to us, they always had a huge argument about who had to take us.
“You can have them!”
“No, you take them.”
If we had gone home
whining about it, our
parents would have laughed.
These days, if a child accuses another child of looking at her wrong,
Mommy, Daddy and Grandma come up, packing loaded pistols.
Back in the olden days
my age of once upon a time with relatives and strangers
filled the radio episodes of Silver and the Lone Ranger
where The Shadow crept in Inner Sanctum threats
and tv intros to Howdy Doody and Uncle Milty timed guests;
I lived in innocence and well-protected immunities
of grammar school and study time too quickly passing
grandmothers and parents meant to be forever lasting
with fathers who came in and out of our lives living
returned eventually without forgiveness or misgivings;
I could go back and try with fondness to recall
within this aged mind and all its fading memories
having lived now, three-quarters of the twentieth century
and condemned to wonder and to wander still
along with the cutdown forests and cemeteries on the hill;
I would return in 2021 and do it all again
with just a tweak, a twist, a turn of history's pen
bring peace and trust and leadership to all women and men
but time is never erased nor easily displaced
what's done is done as the unknown future comes.
12/6/20
Give me the olden days
Before I-pads, I-pods, and I-phones.
When phones were attached to walls.
Summertime people sat on their porches.
Listening to and scolding each other’s children.
Before “self-esteem” was invented.
Conversation ran rampant, people were not afraid to laugh
At themselves and each other.
No one was offended.
We were neighbors.
Everything was hilarious.
We all had homemade Kool aid popsicles,
This was before “germs” were invented.
We were people, belly to belly,
Listening and learning,
All together.
We pushed each other down,
And we kicked each other, but
No one talked about haters or bullies.
No one talked about Republicans or Democrats.
No one talked about other people’s religion.
This was the 1950’s, before “disrespect” was invented.
A friend so dear whom I do love
And whom I dream my future with
A stranger man thou art become
It is the thing I can’t believe.
Oh! I love the olden days
Of how we spent the lovely nights
With dancing feet along the way
With moon above and stars so bright
And how they think I am your wife.
When sultry winds do flip my hair
It is you who truly cares
And when life’s tempests hardly blew
With hope in hearts, we see it through.
Times were hard in Grandma's day
No electrical appliances had she
A ringer washing machine for washing the clothes
And a whistling gas kettle for making the tea
No electric lighting
Just a lamp filled with gas
That's what I remember
When I was a lass
Kneeling down, scrubbing steps
And not just her own
With a bucket of hot water
And a block of donkey stone
I remember on a Tuesday
Grandma used to make
In a willow pattern bowl
A pineapple upside-down cake
Sunday was trifle day
With custard, cream and jelly
Then at twenty to four we'd settle down
To watch ‘The Golden Shot' on the telly
Grandma used to take washing in
For all the neighbours in the street
Then when it was clean and dry
I’d fold it in piles so neat
We were very poor
And didn’t have much to boast
But we were happier then than people are now
The ones who deserve the least have the most
in to the covers of sea
i can see up a boat
sails around us
with blazy wind of blow
toward the shine of sun
through the shines of moon
White-bearded man puffed...
And found the scent of his yore,
In my purple youth
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