An Image Painting

about 24 lines poem

The scarecrow, freckled boy with the water can in the tomato garden,

Hearing wheels and a motor interrupting the quiet country air,

Turns to harken the blue car

Which has entered, munching, the rural lane. 

He calls; the two small ragged girls in buckle shoes,

Clutch in crossed arms dolls in pink gowns;

They run from the single pear tree in white blossom

The Middle of the unsown field. 

The three elder brothers catching Reuben's cry,

Play Babe and Casey and Cy once more,

The softball reaches the sun's apex, and then the old barn's roof,

And the blonde brothers with large smiles,

Do not even run bases, but toss their mitts high. 

Skinny Reuben in his wind flapping overalls,

Washed to the color of the Ocean pale,

And truck-red tee shirt tucked loose in his bib,

Turns with the water can to the driveway of rock,

Turns on tennis shoes to the arriving Hudson. 

The blue Hudson with a nettle of rock is at the old lilacs,

The tomboy woman heavy in aqua and heavy in step,

Has merry good her every warm note and word,

Blair, Blaine, and Blake have her suitcase,

Cissy and Cindy the heavy hem of her aqua dress,

While Reuben has heart swirls so large his very words

Press him to happy silence. 

The baseball player, the doll mender, the story maker,

The Family Heart has returned, the hospital stay passed,

She is ushered to the Home, where fresh lilacs and violets await her,

And the new child discoveries of the last seven day.

The Mother Has Come Home.

Raymond Lee Collins

January 18, 1990

The Auburn Prairie

copyright reserved by the publisher

Carol A Wells

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

Am lost for words.. reaching for tissues - that final line strikes such a cord.

Your Librarian has blessed this reader with his words, his descriptions, his depths and more. Thank you for posting the two I've so far read. Must point the way to others to come read their beauty and more than literary worth.