It is a worn-out source of memory,
A tarpaper-shingled bungalow
Whose floor is leaning against the porch,
Whose backyard suddenly ends
A weed canyon is nothing special:
A chain of three bedrooms
And turned into a long porch parlor
Where my grandfather, Pump, used to smoke
In the evening news,
A long sunny kitchen
Where Annie, his wife,
Corn measured,
Dreaming through the window
Across the valley and up to Shelby Hill
Where he gave birth to their souls,
High-yellow brood.
The bedroom in the middle is hard,
Antique double bed, high
Aunt Jane's ghost,
Landress
Who bought the house in 1872,
Although I call out in all my voice,
Will not appear.
Not even the ghost of the pump,
With whom one of my cousins believes
He was once a long and intimate
Unspoken midnight talk.
He told her, although they had never met,
That she loved him; Promise
His raw widowhood will be healed
Without a stain.
Convenience at a confined corner
The back porch of the slanted floor
The city had its first indoor plumbing.
Aunt Jane let them in,
The woman carries the wrath
Who lived in the big house next door.
Aunt Jane left the house
To Annie, whose mother she knew
As servants of the garden,
So Annie and Pomp could move their kids
In the town below Shelby Hill.
My grandmother, her brother and five sisters
Gradually I saw the change in their faces
Oval mirrors on the wall outside the door
In the face of teachers, golden in respect.
Here in Geneva, Randy's sister,
The curse of their college,
Daubing her fast silver breasts
With the gift of perfume.
As much love
As much as a philosophy
In the tomb of a known ancestor,
The homeplace drives me not to be silent
But the righteous, Jesus praises:
Oh, catfish and turnips,
Hot water corn bread and grits.
Oh, most, many underlined Bibles;
Lost Generations Found,
Can be found.