Howard Starks

Dust hangs heavy in the dull catalpas;
the cicadas are scraping interminably
at the heat-thickened air—
no rain in three weeks, no real breeze all day,
In the dim room
the blinds grimly endure the deadly light,
protecting the machined air,
as the watchers watch the old lady die.
“I’m eighty-six,” she said: “it’s high time—
now John’s gone.”
And to the town’s new doctor
“You’re a good boy,” (she had a great-grandson
who was older,) “so don’t fiddle around.
When fighting was needed, I fought –
But I’m all fought out.”
and later—
“John left when he was due—well—I’m due now,”
“I promise, “ he whispered;
I’ve learned when right is right.”

Now, her daughters sit – – and her grand-daughters –
and at night, her grandsons- –
and her pampered sons-in-law.
One of these, not known for eloquence – –
or tears—said, last week,
“Ola, chance gave me a mother,
but God gave me two.”
She smiled at that,
“yes, I had one boy; god gave me seven more.”
She lies under the sheet,
Thin as one of her old kitchen knives,
honed by years and use to fragile sharpness,
but too well-tempered to break just yet.
It’s two days since she spoke—
“Don’t cry, Bessie;
puppies just die, that’s all.”
(A girl again,
gentling baby sister.)
All the watchers can do
is wipe her dry mouth with gentle wetness.
They watch her old hands and murmur—
How many biscuits
and pans of gravy?
How many babies soothed
and bee-stings daubed with bluing?
How many lamp-wicks trimmed?
How many berries picked?
words circling
as her quiet breath winds down to silence.
No sobs, for she was due, but tears, a few,
selfish ones,
before the calls, the “arrangements”
to put her to bed, beside John
on the dusty hilltop.
Standing there,
we look up from the dry clods
and the durable grey stone,
upwards—
expectantly—
westwards—
where the clouds grow dark.

published in Family Album: a Collection of Poetry Running Board Press, Durant, OK 1995