Years ago
when my grandmother was a girl
Things were definitely different
When she was a girl.
They had village fetes.
Everyone cooked jam.
They all got together
to celebrate anything.
She used to sit and tell me
She had a hat box under her bed
With the cutiest, prettiest hat in it.
The hat box was blue and white striped
and the hat was all floppy and large.
She gathered flowers the previous summer
and placed them in a rather large book.
This book was under the hat box
and pages were carefully opened
to reveal beautiful pressed and preserved
violets and pansies
and marigolds.
They were placed on the hat with ribbon to match
and she used to curl her hair flowing under the brim
of the pretty hat.
Ribbons would trail under the hat pin.
All the teenage girls pretty as pictures
would line in a row to be judged.
And my grandmother with tears and pride in her eyes
used to stroke my face and say she was pretty like me once.
And she always won.
Her eyes were green,
like mine.
But to me she was the prettiest grandmother I had ever seen.
She was my Queen.
And I still love her.