I realized when I looked at the calendar this morning that it was 16 years since Grandma Martha died of breast cancer. The night before she passed, I told her (as she lay staring with open eyes--I don't know if she even heard me) that I'd think of her every day for the rest of my life. I'm pretty sure I have. Sometimes it's sheer nostalgia that conjures the memories; other times it's when I discover some genealogical fact about our lineage that would have surprised and amazed her.

At still other times I watch my sister with her kids and imagine the delight my grandmother would have taken in my niece and nephew--and the pleasure (possibly amazement) at the outstanding mother my sister turned out to be. (You see, my sister didn't seem to care much about kids as an adolescent and young adult, and she married after Grandma was gone.)

The poem below is one I wrote about 20 years ago about a special Sunday Grandma and I shared. Sometimes I swear I can still hear her humming those hymns. 

AT THE RIVER

for Grandma Martha

The Sunday before Grandma’s surgery

we sit along the bank

beside the General Store

at Rabbit Hash.  For an hour

we have debated taking the ferry

to Rising Sun, but the boat

chugs in, chugs out

and we stay put, lulled

by the backwash lapping

the stubbled beach.

Grandma talks

about rivers.  Immersion,

she states, is the only

salvation, to hell with sprinkling

over marble basins.  At fifteen,

pregnant, she swam each day

across the shallow tributary

near her home, buoyed

by her extended belly,

until Great-Grandma made her stop.

“I never was afraid

of a river,” she swears, eyeing

the ever-present ferry

which seems always to be just

leaving.  We could sit like this

all day, putting crossings off

as Grandma hums snatches

of old-time gospel hymns

where water saves, and the Almighty

pilots the holy ship to Zion.

(from Rites and Observances [Finishing Line Press], (c)2004)

--Nancy

Alice Pope is the editor of Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market, the premiere market guide for children's writers--including poets.  At Alice's CWIM Blog, she offers "not-quite-daily news and musings." It's a lively place, and in a couple of days Alice will be live-blogging from the annual summer conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) in Los Angeles. Stop by and see what's happening in Alice's world (and the world of children's books).

--Nancy

SPAM prompt line: Are you still with short ramrod?

(Sorry for the late prompt post--it was a distracting day.)

That squirt Ramrod. What a character! Everyone in your class got a kick out of Ramrod, he wasn't like anyone else. What a shock when he got together with HER. Did they marry? Did it last? What did their kids look like?

Look into your past and see if you can identify a "Ramrod" kind of guy: rather unattractive yet appealing, always kept things lively, maybe foreshadowed a loser taint that would pull him down over the years. And then somehow he made a romantic match with an unlikely partner--amazing everyone and generating buzz that never completely died down.

Write a poem, any style, any form, about a Ramrod-esque person you knew, or knew of. Don't write an epic. Portray "Ramrod" as deftly as you can while exploring the ironies and mysteries of true love.

--Nancy

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