She wasn't afraid of dirt, and never painted her fingernails
until she was old and her youngest daughter did it for her
But she planted Petunias in the springtime and made green beans
with Mrs. Dash and oil in a *** where they boiled on the stove
And she could peel five potatoes faster with
a knife than I could peel one with a peeler. And she dried her car
in the garage after it rained and pressed our shirts.
She quit guitar in her seventies, or maybe earlier I can't remember
because the arthritis was too much for her fingers but she
still sang and still made her pancakes crispy and still went
to church to sit on the pew next to last from the back
And she sang hymns with her sister until her sister was gone
And she drove a pickup into the woods at eighty and wasn't afraid
of getting hurt but she was afraid of the dark
She played Hand and Foot and Checkers and Rummy and went to
yard sales and sent cards to the sick and loved red roses
and the color purple but not the color yellow which she
told my mother she looked bad in and also my aunt.
She spoke with authority and knew what was right without having to ask
anyone but the Bible and she told you what she thought
and loved you no matter what and would always give you a job
if you were sitting because there was always something to clean
or fetch and there was little worse than being lazy.
She bought wagons for the grandkids and covered the fire at night
and sang about heaven and took walks up on the hill until it
got too hard to walk. And she never gave up and she always held
on so tight you could see her knuckles turn white because there
was no letting go.