Honor Under A Wampin' Willow Tree

It’s all spread out under a willow tree,

     folding chairs with taped-over handles

and big black pots nestled over rigged gas flames

      with smells wafting and wigglin’ all willow wamped.  

 

Aunt Spuddy’s stirring something with a big broken wood spoon

     and hummin’ up a chord of “Good Ole’ Elijah”

                                  near good enough to recognize.  

 

Walk to her pot and take a peek in to see what’s floatin’

                       with the rioting bubbles

not sure quite what it is or isn’t, and rules says you can’t ask,…

                       you just gotta taste.  

     

     So I gets me some of whatever that stuff was,

and walks over to Uncle Ducky’s sitting swatting at flies under the willow branches

      and peeks into his black kettle pot too.  

 

I’m pretty sure I see something like shrimp floating in them bubbles

and figure maybe a good gumbo’s boiling a hole in the bottom of the pot,

     so I take as much as my plate will hold,

                and then some more,

                  with suckling shrimps hitting the dirt

                  and the willow cat clawing and sniffing at ‘em.  

 

Taters wrapped in foil piping hot too hot to handle

      roll cross my paper plate

pushin’ off more shrimp to the willow cat stalking my every step

      and okra fried not boiled finds a low spot to rest on my shrimp 

 

I grab my can-o-beer and tuck it under my arm as I carry a plate of dinner

     and a plate of deserts 

            Mississippi mud cake

                 Cheatin’ Cherry Cobbler

                           Nabisco wavers 

 

I grab up a hard cooler to sit on with plates and beer balanced

 with the edge of the willow covering my head from the 100% sunburn 

and try talkin’ to Uncle Ducky who useta speak English before he lost all his teeth. 

 

Uncle Chester pulls up too and we get to talkin’ and woofin’ food

     back wood rhythm to the words and the sounds of clan together

when the flies don’t seem so bad and the gnats kinda stay clear of the pots

     and you start to learn stuff you had no idea was in those heads 

 

Bout “back whens” and “good ‘nuffs.

     ”the “he saids” and “she saids” that made their way 50 years to now

‘bout where you come from and what you belong to

      and how poor people have poor ways but make life happen  

 

Uncle Chester has money….lot’s o money

      and turns out Uncle Ducky’s not doing too bad either

and the clan of folks surrounding that wampin’ willow got more than enough to make do

 

     but they got their past too….

          the one with nothing

                        and less than nothin’

     and they hang on to it tight like a penny from their childhood  

 

They come together not just to see each other again before they pass on

     or to trade the family gossip (though that they do)

 

They come together to remember that they had nothing and got through

     and that there is a special kind of honor

          under a wampin’ willow tree when ones-a-lookin' back.

Reviews

[MCS]

Enjoyable read, thought provoking and reinforcing the message that it’s the hardest times that teach us the most valuable lessons.