Auction On a Windy Hill
Beneath billowing sack cloth tent
An auctioneer jibber-jabbers his words.
Below his red mahogany dais
Sit Fifty Amish American women and girls.
Black-bonnet-ed, bidder-number in hand,
they chirp for cowl or coat, yelp for yarn,
raise bid card for church books, wool hats, many lengths of linen,
plethora of patches to sew into quilts.
Each lady bides her time until she points or winks or nods.
Calling to mind a measure of a time past.
Suspender-ed men inspect implements laid firm against gray fence,
even to the unused chamber pot still pure and winter white.
Rake, hoe, watering can, all is offered, noticed, taken for a price by love.
Untimely winds spin dust from the fallow fields, through the tent.
Coarse black garments now dressed in manure brown.
The whole crowd moves down
at the last to the front yard to bid home the furniture.
Magnificent bed- one hundred years old-, mahogany desk,
cherry wood breakfront seven feet tall,
shaker chairs, porch rocker and a modern recliner are claimed.
Auction done, the cows, horses, dogs and cats are led away.
As Kate and I walk to our van, an old man speaks English to me
saying most items stayed in her family.
Leaving, we were only strangers looking for a bargain,
happy with a four dollar end-table we took from her friends .
Copyright ©
John Ozemko
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