The ashes that hold memories

The old house of our memories home

smolders, now burnt.

It is just a hull, ravaged from the inside out

The first room to go, that sacred place

where she would sit in her recliner

peeling oranges in Winter time,

sucking the juice out and tossing the pulpy Rhine

only wanting the juice,

life giving manna that staved off

sickness during the cold Kentucky Winters.

This house,

Where generations of children were raised;

those of the great mother

and later her children's children.

The front is gone, the porch

where so many seasons

beans were hulled and broke

to the sweet sound or her singing

and the stories she would tell

of family, known by many only name.

The kettle that once stood;

a cast iron cauldron

where food was canned

and mutton made.

All gone.

The grapevine, that we all raided time and again

despite the sourness of the grape

and the consequent belly ache;

purple giving away to a vibrant green,

and the sour taste would

cause a curious puckering of the lips

and uncontrollable cringe

yet we would go back for another and yet another.

Memories:

the pop of the electric fence

and the way that electricity felt

as the youngest of us were tricked into

testing to see if it was on,

as the task always fell on the youngest

time and time again.

Memories:

Sitting in the backyard by a wooden picnic table,

digging through the soft mud

and making mud pies to cook on that old

wood cook stove,

that stood in the backyard for as long

as grand kids can remember.

The dying of her house,

like losing a member of the family.

From the youngest to the oldest,

we all ran barefoot through that house at one time.

When the sun went down

and He-Haw had gone off the air

we would crawl on top of feather beads,

chins tucked neatly under homemade quilts,

trying not to move, so that our warmth would

soak deep in the feather bed.

The house is now gone and with it

the paths worn by dozens of children

from the living room to the back rooms.

Never have I seen so many beds crammed in to such a small house.

But, as a child that house seemed immense.

And now, what is left, seems so small

and the relics we once held so dear have floated

to the sky, not quite to heaven, but at a height where they will never be seen again.

The tears we shed could have quenched that fire,

the memories remain but the rooms in which we made them

are now gone;

Cast iron skillets, Red Eye Gravy, the sight of grandma

eating crackers in her coffee at the kitchen table.

So many of us still run barefoot through those halls.

Dodging fly swats and that dreaded paddle

that sat just around the corner as a reminder

the fly swat was a mercy compared to what we could have gotten.

Memories, there are so many.

And those are just mine.

The well water was so cold, but you couldn't

drink a drop until grandma scooped out

all the germs from the water bucket.

My recollections are but a drop in that bucket.

And the memories go back, back before me

before my mother.

Back to when the house was built

and the youngest child was just a baby.