Untold Memories 09/04-08/2015
I
When you're young,
Early on especially,
The present's in
The air you breathe,
Often underfoot
Like left out toys,
Sometimes in your face
After childhood missteps
Or the larger world
Comes barging in.
~
Snippets
Of possibilities,
Probabilities,
Distant clouds
That may come
Your way or not.
But gather and harden
With choice;
Yours, yet also
Countless others',
Such hints
Of future
Often overlooked
In the glare
Of the present.
~
Mostly private people
My family were.
A few stories,
A legend or two.
The painful pushed back
Behind a curtain..
Certain members unapproved,
Mentioned only
In passing.
Life went on,
You don't even think
Immersed in your own
Present to ask
What you don't know
Of a past
Like an air nav chart
Checkered with
No Fly, No Go,
FOUO, No Foreign.
II
Great Grandpa Gerhard,
Alive till I'm twelve,
Erect, austere and certain.
Holding court
In your living room.
Descended from Marshal Ney
You said,
Not knowing
We're cousins.
All the while
The hidden locket,
Your late wife's image,
Next to you heart.
What was she like?
I'll never know now.
Boyhood in Barton.
Normal school 1890.
How was that?
Park policeman
Folded into regular force.
Still a thief with a knife
Is the same to either.
Were you scared before
You disarmed him
On the Locust St. bridge?
Why the late move
To Appleton
Only to return?
~
Grandpa George Senior,
Hollywood handsome
In youth say the photos.
Fancy cakes baker
Only for work.
Never knew the taste
Nor the bakery.
Few words mostly,
Unless baiting Dad
By defending
Joe McCarthy
As misunderstood.
~
Grandma Lydia,
Samurai grade carbon steel
Wrapped securely
In a goose down quilt,
Extra thick and fluffy.
Let her nice you
To death, yes.
Or else!
What was Dad like
As a boy?
Or your brothers,
Especially Henry?
Drowned at fourteen.
Married a man
With that middle name,
And brother Fred's
Third son's a Hank.
What's that?
Twenty some years
Too late.
~
Grandpa Milton Wordsworth
Too few years.
Too few visits
Down the disappeared
railroad. Like Arlo's.
A long gone interurban,
The North Shore.
Only a trail
On a bit
Of right of way
Aimed at Chicago.
Our trips shortstopped
at Great Lakes Naval
Short walks wending
Through hospital grounds,
A shadow
Of your former self.
I'm never told
What keeps you there
Till the Easter you died
Grandma went
That longest short trip
Alone.
No tales of WW One
Navy, ships
And duty at sea.
I carried
That small leather
Key holder over
Twenty years
Till collapse.
~
Grandma Anna,
Queen of Clean.
Regular rearranger
Of my dresser drawers.
Where are those socks?
Every morning
To early Mass.
Neither Mom nor her
Talk much of Grandpa
Or of Clifford,
Sandy haired son
Of the easy going smile,
Killed at nineteen,
March, 1945
With the 94th,
The Woodchoppers.
He liked Stan Kenton.
Never told not to ask.
But subtly sidetracked
To safer roads.
Not till Mom died
Did I find out,
Not just a working mother,
A prime leather stitcher,
But a suffragette.
And Uncle Clifford,
A silver star.
Who knows
What else lies
Under yesteryear's leaves.
- Gerald Alan Ney
