Wardensville, WV

my second home i guess, but i haven't been up there in years.

Grandma Tharpe lived in an old white house

with green shutters lacing the windows.

On Sundays, instead of going to church,

Dad would drive

his old brown station wagon

across the state line

dividing the past and present

by mere geography.

I'd carry in a load of wood

from the leaning shed

and place a few logs

in the crackling stove.

Dad and Grandma would sit

at the lime green table--

decades old but probably the newest funiture in the house--

a framed picture of Gerald Ford

hung between them smiling

from the cover of Parade magazine.

I'd run down the hill

to frolic by the creek,

standing on the little red bridge

and watching pine cones sail from one side to the other.

 

Gazing at the giant white rock speckled with bits of blue

my Dad told me lead to the kingdom of the Ants,

and he had ventured to their underground lair

when he was roughly my age.

The culvert at the end of the creek

smelled of stale concrete and stones

and was the home of a ghost

Dad had battled years ago

and now lulled me to sleep

on my top bed bunk

with his tales of past bravery.

I always imagined the fiend 

with pupil-less grey eyes

and a jagged set of teeth

grinning at me from the icy blackness

 

Dad would let out a whistle,

cracking the meditative silence

of childhood imagination,

and I'd run back up the hill.

Throwing my arms around

my grandma's blue Sunday dress

and rubbing my young tender cheek

against her old red leather.

We'd set off again for home,

and the promise of pork chops for dinner.