Why do you walk again, Great-Grandfather?
Didn't you ever get your fill of life?
Ninety years, nine sons by your first.
Seven sons by your patient second wife!
I walk because I must,
I am Snow family dust.
And I am restless under the full moon;
When the year is at its best
That's the one time I can't rest.
Tell me about the old Snow farmstead, June.
Your farm is flourishing. Great-Grandpa Snow,
Your corn's five inches high in every row.
Big Brother's marrying a wife tonight.
Your fields beneath the moon are running white
With daisies. Small Boy's led his class in school.
There isn't a hoe, there isn't a tool
That gathers rust, that's not kept hot.
Even your Grandpa Son has got
Blisters upon his callouses
And sweat upon his galluses!
There isn't a ragweed left, a thistle,
Your old farm's as clean's a whistle!
No witch grass roots which can go through
A man's heart or a tough old shoe.
Middle Boy's thin as a Spring sardine
He's hoed so many corn rows clean!
The sun has burnt him Indian red
He's gone so naked. That boy shed
His overalls at each row's end,
Upped his blazing hot hind-end
And dived into the Hooding sea
And cooled him so he wouldn't be
Cooked to a cinder by the heat.
There's a boy that can't be beat!
You're going strong, believe you me!
New swarm of bees in the popple tree,
Nine Hereford heifers or the knoll,
And any one would tempt your soul!
Grandma's put up ten quirt jars
Of strawberry jam. The handle bars
Of the Hired Man's moustache
Are quivering at red-flannel hash
On the table in Ma's platter.
Yellow Hound-Dog. he is fatter
Than the Woodchuck he can't catch.
Bushels more strawberries in the parch!
All your family's getting fat,
Small Boy's like a butter pat
In his breeches. Mother's crying
Over the red hash she's frying
At losing a son if gaining a daughter
By marriage. Uncle's mouth's a-wrter
Over Ma's wild-strawberry cream:
Ten quarts of strawberries sweet and sharp
As notes upon a wild Welsh harp,
Crushed in sugar of equal weight,
Ten quarts of cream in souring state,
Aged in the cellar to pink delight
To whet a seraph's appetite!
There are two hundred places set at the white
Crossroads Free Will Baptist Church this night,
Fifty plates of chocolate cake and spice,
Angel food, tall freezers packed with ice
And ecstasy for little boys and girls
Who have spilt honey on their heads for curls.
The Minister took his black suit from the moths,
Long tables are long snowdrifts of white cloths;
There's chicken salad, salmon salad, pie
Of twenty breeds, baked beans, white, yellow-eye.
Bread-and-butter pickles, chili sauce,
Horseradish strong enough to fell a horse.
There's music in the air and wedding rings,
The rather old soprano who still sings
“O Promise Me,” there's Mendelssohn's sweet march,
Pants pressed to razors and the iron of starch,
Hope, the rice, and joy to speed the years,
Boys hollow with hunger, and a mother's tears.
Go back into your grave and sing,
The years have used you like a king!
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