An Old Poem

Great-Uncle John

I know what he meant when he said,
“My old cup runneth over!”
Mine doeth that so often,
I’m afraid I’ll go to hell
for loving life too much.

He looked like one of the Indians
in an early photograph
of Geronimo and his band,
all hung about with extra clothes
and miscellaneous items.

I looked for his grave the other day
over at Pleasant Ridge;
I know it’s there, for I’ve seen it,
but it seems to move around,
much like the old man himself.

Never at home anywhere,
he was always on the move, walking
“to Gilead for the balm,”
or “up the old Jericho Road,
to hear Paul, that new little preacher.”

My mother says she thinks
he was buried somewhere else,
but Aunt Bob says he’s there.
She puts flowers on his grave
on Decoration Day.

I asked her if she remembered
the bags of sweet buns he carried
to share with children he met;
he'd give one to a tot, then tease,
“Don't you eat my pie!”

(by JRC, October 2000)

*

The installers finished the AC at noon yesterday, just in time to keep me from lying down on my back and sticking my arms and legs up in the air and hollering "calf rope!" It took ten hours to cool the house down from 85 to 77. I guess that was pretty reasonable; cooling about 3600 square feet, counting the basement. It's not really supposed to cool the basement, but somehow it does.