Related quotes: the grandbaby in his arms...

History (Became A Child)

the grandbaby in his arms
brings back the old house.
buckets of water carried
up the hill...
cutting wood to feed the stove.
an old mattress on the floor,
a coffee pot well stained.
spiders on the outhouse wall,
the garden, and the hoe.
the cooking pot and the rocking chair,
handmade quilts, green beans snapped.
simple beginnings that wrote history,
and history became a child!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Related quotes

Forty Dollar Bathtub

a forty dollar galvanized bathtub!
carrying buckets of water up the hill
to heat on the old cook stove...
i watched you bathing in the kitchen,
in the old house down on Henry River.
fried Spam and pork 'n beans,
moonlit trips to the outhouse....
stray dogs on the porch.
endless truckloads of wood scraps;
we made love through winter nights,
so cold in the room you could see your breath!
you licked the frost from my moustache,
and the world went on without us....
a forty dollar bathtub, buckets of water,
nothing needed, nothing more!

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Do It All Again!

empty water buckets
on a porch long deserted,
the old house falling down
like a tree sheds its leaves.
the chimney stands cold,
almost roaring with silence...
and there's still a marker
in the back yard where we buried the dog.

love yellowed sheets,
and maggots in the flour.
spiders march on the outhouse walls.
empty mason jars that remember green beans,
a hoe, and a shovel with a broken handle.

ghosts walk cobwebbed halls,
the old floor sags.
and the sounds of two young lovers
haunt the ticking of an unseen clock.
damn! to go back...

and do it all again!

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Simplest Of Things...

there is a rare beauty
in the simplest of things...
the door knob tarnished,
the book with the worn cover.
the hallelujah shout of the snail,
rain water standing in an old tire.
the lampshade covered with dust,
the iron sitting unattended.
the child's toy left on the floor,
the hand that always somehow fits.
the old woman's heavy breathing,
the coffee cup stained half empty.
the cry of young lovers from a distant window.
the dog's low growl at something unseen.
the tattered remnants of the robin's nest,
the broken eggshell clinging to grass.
the old hymn sung by the man working his garden...
the swing of the axe, the stacking of wood.
the spider clinging to the outhouse wall,
potatoes laid out in the cellar for winter.
the grave solitary three days after the funeral.
the cat cradled on the step while it rains.
the laughter of a love long in journey.
the cup of coffee shared with the transient stranger.
the prayer of the child, and the room gone dark....
words spoken from the heart with hands and feet.

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sisotowbell Lane

Sisotowbell lane
Noah is fixing the pump in the rain
He brings us no shame
We always knew that he always knew
Up over the hill
Jovial neighbors come down when they will
With stories to tell
Sometimes they do
Yes sometimes we do
We have a rocking chair
Each of us rocks his share
Eating muffin buns and berries
By the steamy kitchen window
Sometimes we do
Our tongues turn blue
Sisotowbell lane
Anywhere else now would seem very strange
The seasons are changing
Everyday in everyway
Sometimes it is spring
Sometimes it is not anything
A poet can sing
Sometimes we try
Yes we always try
We have a rocking chair
Somedays we rock and stare
At the woodlands and the grasslands and the badlands cross the river
Sometimes we do
We like the view
Sisotowbell lane
Go to the city youll come back again
To wade thru the grain
You always do
Yes we always do
Come back to the stars
Sweet well water and pickling jars
Well lend you the car
We always do
Yes sometimes we do
We have a rocking chair
Someone is always there
Rocking rhythms while theyre waiting with the candle in the window
Sometimes we do
We wait for you

song performed by by Joni Mitchell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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America, America...

i remember...
$1.55 an hour, furniture row,
55 hours a week.
getting up hay, milking cows,
and them cotton mills
we worked in...
family member to family member,
generations of workers.

no running water,
carrying buckets up the hill,
spiders on the outhouse wall.
the hoe, the shovel, and the plow.
reading by candle light,
and writing socialist manifestos
on a 1913 underwood typewriter!

making love in the front seat
of a 1966 Rambler Classic.
raising babies, raising hell,
renegade thoughts...
climbing mountains, picking music,
living, living, just living
and working!

America, America...
where did you go?

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Me And My Old Cat Sam

I sit here all alone well

Me and my old cat Sam

Rocking back and fro

As my

Chair squeaks

As I rock

In front of the old fireplace

Just me and my old cat
Sam

Knitting mittens

Singing while my cat sam takes
A nap

I’m growing old

Still alone

Me and my old cat Sam and my
Old rocking chair

As the fireplace is cracking while

The

Red blue flames seem to cracker
And pop

As it

Burn so happily it seem's

My chair squeaks my cat nod as I
Rock

In my rocking chair back and fro

Cheerfully in front of my old
Fireplace

With red and blue flames highlighting
The wall and ceilings

Me and my old cat Sam as he nod’s

I rock back and fro

While my rocking chair squeaks along
With the fireplace cracker and
Popping..

poem by Carolyn Sears
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Sestina

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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Caves Of Altamira

I recall when I was small
How I spent my days alone
The busy world was not for me
So I went and found my own
I would climb the garden wall
With a candle in my hand
Id hide inside a hall of rock and sand
On the stone an ancient hand
In a faded yellow-green
Made alive a worldly wonder
Often told but never seen
Now and ever bound to labor
On the sea and in the sky
Every man and beast appeared
A friend as real as i
Chorus:
Before the fall when they wrote it on the wall
When there wasnt even any hollywood
They heard the call
And they wrote it on the wall
For you and me we understood
Can it be this sad design
Could be the very same
A wooly man without a face
And a beast without a name
Nothin here but history
Can you see what has been done
Memory rush over me
Now I step into the sun
Chorus

song performed by by Steely Dan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Caves Of Altamira

song performed by by Steely Dan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Beans and Potatoes

Seventeen years on the graveyard shift
Retetitive work leaves her hands in pain
Swollen are her feet, fifty hours a week
leaves her body drained
Week to week pays of nothing more than minimum wage
Making ends meet is a constant strain
Beans and potatoes
All she has to show for her pain

A cigarette on her midnight break
As every muscle continues to ache
Knowing when arriving home her work is never done....
Wake the kids, rush them to school
Only then the real work has begun.
Grabs her pail to tend the garden crop
In the Kentucky mud, only the best potatoes she will shop
Put the beans on the stove, peel the potatoes,
Feed the children, tuck them into bed
Only then her work will stop

Every hour spent in the garden, and on the hard concrete factory floor
Every miracle made with the monthly bills
Are moments closer to lives her children will never endure
No money saved for a rainy day, nor money for college
Only by example she can lead, so each child knows
To want more out of their lives than beans and potatoes

poem by Carl Leiland
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Mr. Vice President, the most fiscally conservative thing this government has ever done, is to invest massively in the green part of the recovery. Because those green dollars are the hardest working dollars in the history of American politics. That same dollar that is being used to cut energy bills, is also cutting global warming gas emissions, is also cutting unemployment, is also cutting poverty, through retrofits it's also raising the value of homes, is also by cleaning the air, cutting asthma rates.

quote by Van Jones
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Garden

I know a garden like a child,
Clean and new-washed and reconciled.
It grows its own sweet way, yet still
Has guidance of some tender will
That clips, confines, its wilder mood
And makes it happy, being good.

Around the lordly mountains stand,
For this is an enchanted land,
As though their splendours stood to grace
This little lovely garden place,
Looking with wise and keeping eyes
Upon the garden sanctities.

Box borders edge each little bed,
Paths narrow for a child to tread
Divide the kitchen garden, dear
And sweet with musk and lavender,
And water-mints and beans in bloom.
Be sure the honeybee's at home.

How should I tell in a sweet list
Of beauties, rose and amethyst;
The little water-garden cool
On sultry days, and beautiful
The wall-garden, the shade, the sun,
Since they are lovely, every one.

Hot honey of the pines is sweet,
And when the day's at three o'clock heat
A winding walk will you invite
To a new garden out of sight.
And a green seat is set so near
The sluggish, stealing backwater.

The Spirit of the garden plays
At hide-and-seek an hundred ways
And when you've captured her, she will
Elude you, calling backward still,
A silver echo -- a sweet child,
Demure and lovesome, gay and wild.

poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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