lester

connected meanderings
2007-12-29 13:20:47 (UTC)

Xmas thanks poem

Over the Christmas holiday spent in NOrth Carolina, worked
on a number of poems, of this is one, part of a portrait
series,written December 26, the day after our dinner at
Whitaker Glen, a residence for older people in Raleigh. As
a friend who was featured in some others of these, these
take on the persona of the person in the style of Robt
Browning or Robt Frost.

Thanks for Christmas Dinner

Appreciate the invitation. No family left for me except
What might fit into a closet.
Had breakfast with my daughter
And my ex. No parents, no brother, he’s long gone,
Only a niece and nephew for the rest.

What’s up with me? Well, over the last seven months or so,
I’ve lost 97 pounds. Hardest were the latest ones.
I eat mostly salads and such like. That’s all.
You know, what they tell you about diets.
No meats to speak of, no junk.

Why? Well, I looked at myself in the mirror after a bath,
And I thought, I don’t like myself the way I look.

Yeah this suit does seem to fit, but no not new,
I got it twenty years ago for the funeral of my father.
My shoulders fit more closely now – you know what I mean –
Too snug a trifle. True, I guess I’ve worked a fair amount,
But not on gym-rat machines –
Lotta wood I’ve chopped at my country place:
Five acres loaded with sweet gum and its twisted grain.
I use a hydraulic splitter.

Size came from my Dad – he stood six foot and a little
more,
Mother just over four. Some jokester called her a midget –
certified,
But oh could she talk! You’ve asked about my gift of gab.
Well, she not he the one I got it from.

They met in England, Cambridge, he a student of cotton
genes –
That’s how they ended in the south – she the landlady’s
daughter.

Mom lasted ‘til age 89, well almost, buried on her
birthday.
She’d worried about how many would show
When she planned that party. Well, they all made it though
She hadn’t planned it in just the way it managed to turn
out.

My brother – older – did thoracic surgery; oh, he worked
for all he got.
I never regretted doing my other thing.

What caused his death? Oh, his second wife killed him,
murder.
He’d gotten sick, diabetes, and could no longer work.
She monkeyed with his test-machine so he seemed to die of
His own illness – pretty good story, don’t you see?
But his daughter figured it out and kept them on it.
So after about a year had passed;
They exhumed the body. That wife died in prison.

The country place? Oh, I moved there maybe thirty years
ago
East of Raleigh not an hour out; last real country in Wake
County left.
From the road can’t see my house. Built it level by
level, bit by bit.
A couple of months ago we had a party for completion
As I had finally got the larger kitchen done.
The old one, a galley type, now just a closet on the side.

Two wives moved away from me and that house,
Both after about five years. I don’t know why for either.

I thought the first might return for Daddy’s funeral
But maybe her new husband wouldn’t be too high on such as
that.
I stayed pretty friendly with the second, mother of
Our daughter now 24.
No problems with child support nor visitations –
That’s 90-percent of any hassle, I believe,
After marriages get over.

So no, no more wives there will live with me.
But I do plan dancing lessons.
Ballroom dancing, more elegant by far than square,
Or contra, or whatever.

Oh, and thank you for this Christmas dinner
And the very pleasant walk, and all the conversation;
Now I’ll homeward go and get
My presents for my nephew and my niece.
I’ve an evening with them planned
For that Christmas part that’s yet to come.




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