Monday, 15 August 2011

{Lucinda Matlock}... a month of poetry....





I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

Edgar Lee Masters



2 comments:

  1. What a great poem! The last line is so true. I often wonder what my foremothers and fathers would think of my cushy life and my "problems". They had courage and a perspective that I try to live up to. Also, I love how she tells her life, and then her death, and then you realise she's speaking from beyond and it's not a "sweet repose" that cuts her off from us. Thanks, Suzy!

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