Country girl

25 Oct

I’ve spent my life cringing
at the Hollywood versions
of my supposed accent.

Each year they get it wrong
and play up the silly words
while ignoring the melody
of my voice,
each syllable’s timbre
more varied than a banjo’s.

[][][]

My youth was spent
playing hopscotch
on black grasshoppers,
their guts glowing green
on the shimmering asphalt.

Grandmaw insisted that we eradicate them
with our “tinny shoes”
before they munched her gladiolas
completely out of existence.

On hazy evenings
with scabby legs
we hid in the alleyways
of sprawling hay bale cities,
careful to avoid the darker crevices
where spiders hung
and watched us play.

The locusts screaming,
we gathered on the back porch
to rock in the swing
and watch the adults
pluck ticks from the dogs’ fur
like exotic grey fruit
teeming with deep red juice
that we would stomp
into the concrete
with delighted disgust.

[][][]

Ignoring the sweat
beading on our spines,
we slogged through corn
up to our knees
inside giant metal bins,
moths fluttering
against the dust and sunlight,
our laughter echoing endlessly.

7 Responses to “Country girl”

  1. Wendy 25. Oct, 2005 at 10:53 pm #

    Only you could make tick-killing beautiful.

  2. theogeo 26. Oct, 2005 at 4:59 pm #

    Thanks. :)

  3. Palm Tree 27. Oct, 2005 at 8:43 pm #

    What a vivid, lush poem! It makes me miss my childhood. We killed our ticks with smoldering cigarette butts, however.

  4. Your friendly Maytag repairman 28. Oct, 2005 at 3:01 am #

    I wonder if I could come up with something equally poignant about suburban life….

  5. theogeo 29. Oct, 2005 at 1:02 am #

    PT, thanks! My mom and grandmother used to inflict cigarette pain on ticks, too. They would just explode. Gag.

    Cox, I’m sure you could. You had something poignant to say about those cigs of yours.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Grandmaw’s back yard | theology&geometry - 04. Jun, 2010

    [...] plastic half barrels left at the edge of the porch to catch the rain water. My grandmother would sit and absentmindedly pick ticks off the ones who would let her. In my memory my grandfather didn’t spend a lot of time outside. I really only remember him [...]
  2. theology&geometry - 14. Jan, 2011

    [...] The farm has gone from functional to almost completely symbolic in my lifetime. When I was born, my dad was a farmer. That was his job. As it has been his dad’s job. I remember when Dad wore big trucker hats to keep out the sun as he maneuvered his tractor around the hundreds of acres he was responsible for tending. He sported the finest farmer’s tan known to man. (Seriously, you need to click that link. I’ll wait.) (Glad you clicked, aren’t you?) Even my sister was expected to help out with farm duties; some of my earliest memories are of going with her to slop hogs before school. I remember seeing pigs being born and playing in the grain bins. [...]

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