Grandma's house was perched on the side of a hill and had giant white pines shading the front lawn. Behind the house, apples trees, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries grew in profusion. I remember it as my first fast-food restaurant.
The music -- the song of childhood -- was inside against one wall, where there stood a magnificent old pump organ. Tiny mirrors on the backboard reflected family pictures, Mother's Day cards, shells from the ocean and a tiny winter scene in a half-bubble, that snowed inside when you shook it.
There was room for three wee people to play the organ. The smallest sat on the floor and pumped on the wide, well-worn pedals. The two that worked above pushed and pulled a row of pegs and pounded the seemingly endless line of ivories.
It wasn't until I was grown that I saw the organ as more than a wonderful music machine. I was taking my new husband to meet the matriarch of the family and was embarrassed by the scratches, the worn pedals, the cracked mirror. I couldn't understand, at that moment in time, why the careless hands of children had been allowed to mar the beauty of such an obvious work of art, glorious in its antiquity.
Then a few years later my own children were allowed to play as I had played, by what I considered an over-indulgent greatgrandmother. I watched in dismay as they pulled pegs, pounded the pedals and played as many keys as fingers and elbows could cover.
And in the glance of an eye my dismay turned to awe, when I turned my head and saw the ecstasy that lit their faces mirrored in their greatgrandma's eyes.
What I had considered over-indulgence was only her way of stopping a moment, to share in the joys of childhood
weathering well
See the leopard frog?
sandhill cranes trumpet their goodmornings
unfettered in the proclamations of their love
a half moon smiles down upon them
through the lightening sky
will it be long now
before the peepers crawl from their
beds of frozen mud
to greet the coming spring?
I await with an eagerness unparalleled
hurry please, my mother of the hills,
and bring the warmth of opening buds
to clear away the fog of my winter
life's roadmap written in my mirror
reminding me I have lived.
Why would anyone buy wrinkle cream?
