I had a great, great, grandmother
still alive when I was a child
She was my grandpas, grandmother
even then she was a bit wild
Born in eighteen seventy eight
on a buckboard in Missouri
She had come a long way by then
she was fit and full of fury

We played cards everyday with her
beating her nearly made her weep
"Poopie, kacky, nanny" she'd say
"looks like it's time for you to sleep"
She'd wake me nearly every night
she returned from playing bingo
I'd play with her, games of euchre
sports of chance and foreign lingo

She would walk wherever she went
eat apples, including the core
Cuss and drink, then give me a wink
as she pulled the cards from her drawer
At times she would regress somewhat
"grandpa quit me in thirty four
Thought me uptight, he wasn't right
wouldn't run *** with me no more"

Her first picture was a tin type
"I was a looker in my day
I turned heads in the finest spreads
back then, I always got my way"
She witnessed many inventions
electric, lights to cars and trains
the first to own, a telephone
where she'd talk through the morning rains

At ninety she and I would watch
as three men circled round the moon
"We'll be on Mars, and then the stars
if I don't kick off pretty soon"
She lived to see her kids away
making sure they were buried right
"Yep" she'd say "I put them away
tucked em in for the winters night"

Once when we were playing football
and the game was getting quite tense
She'd sauntered by, looking quite spry
  I knocked her down, along the fence
She got up and kicked me senseless
too many bananas and beer
"Now you know, how to take a blow
don't ever show them any fear"

Granny was an institution
a relic of our bygone days
Laughter and tears, poured from her years
her sometimes odd and senile ways
She had outlived all her children
and a couple of grand-kids too
War nor drought, could put her light out
the toughest broad I ever knew

Tate