Creativity crosses generations, cultures, and genders. It gives meaning to daily living.
Excerpt from Scattered Rainbows Volume II of Circle of Life Trilogy
IN THE COMPANY HOUSE
Before the woman's breasts
would lose their firmness
and run dry of milk,
before the man's lungs
would turn black,
cause his early death,
before she would choose church
over her children,
before his body would give itself
over to wracking coughs
from the dust and dampness
of the company mines,
before the gospel and the herbs
There was my grandmother
in the company house
baking paska,
making halupki and pirogi for fam'ly,
my grandfather's fertile voice
streaming in from the garden
to blend with her singing,
his music enriching the soil
beneath his feet, my grandmother's
clapping hands, feet dancing rhythms
from their courting days
in the old country.
This a rich, rich poem, containing the entire story of your family in 2 unassuming verses. My interest in your poem comes from being born and raised in Coal Country in PA. Although the Company houses were gone by my time, I think there is a common bond in mining families that continues today.
Your ethnic foods tantalize my taste buds, although our names for them are more American than "old-country."
Thanks for sharing this memory-maker. Connie
If you tend to believe romantic, passionate, masculine poetry is a thing of past eras, read "She Intrigues Me," and be swept away in the beautiful craft of a contemporary poet of love.
David Hightower’s lyrically expansive meditation on the whims of fate and the unpredictability of the human condition fill the pages of THE HANGING MAN DREAMS with thrilling music and mesmerizing imagery. Hightower’s richly infused voice echoes the e
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cherished and shared.
Axilea
Your ethnic foods tantalize my taste buds, although our names for them are more American than "old-country."
Thanks for sharing this memory-maker. Connie
Be always safe,
Karen
Edwin