MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

Rememberin’ Vicey

MeeMaw was as old as the smoky hills she was born on,
weathered like beef jerky.
She was a sight in her homemade dresses,
an’ when she got riled up,
she could tell a tale and spread it out like a week’s wash,
spinnin' a yarn

‘bout horse-drawn wagons,

‘bout life before ‘lectricity and fancy indoor water closets,

‘bout the first horseless carriage she ever rode in

or how she liked to have died the day she saw a man walk on the moon,

and especially,
she’d tell ‘bout how hard it was growin’ up dirt poor farmers durin’ the depression,
an’ wearing newspaper dresses for her Sunday best,
an’ itchy ole barely sacks the rest of the time.
Yes, MeeMaw was a master at speaking the truths.

But when her eyes got misty,
you knew she was gonna tell one close to her heart…
an’ if’n’ you were lucky, she tell ‘bout the flood of ’93…
1893 that is,
when she was goin’ on four.

How the Nolichuckey River rose up like a beast and swallowed everything in sight—
houses,
barns,
fields,
cows,
an’ even people.

She could feel the sting of rain on her face as it thundered through the hole in the roof
an’ she was standin’ knee-deep in muddy river water
in her own sittin’ room.
The wind howled like it never had before,
screaming like toddlers,
only it rose from deep in the guts of the dark woods.
An’ then the water started risin’.

When it got up to her small chest,
she began to fret.
Maw and Paw were out on the farm somewhere
in a battle, staking sandbags
and buying time.

She knew she couldn’t count on them to help.
She was all alone with her baby sister
Vicey,
rockin’ her close to her chest
in a hopeless attempt to calm her down.

Then the river gobbled up the mud dam,
an’ there came a rush
like a force from Hell itself
that crashed through the door
an’ spent MeeMaw off her tiny feet.

She said she would never forget
the feel of the murky water fillin’ her lungs,
or the feel of the baby’s hand
slippin’ from hers.

Needless to say,
MeeMaw survived the flood and grew tough as nails.
She spent many a day remindin’ us youngins
how she fought the Nolichuckey an’ won.
But somethin’ inside her
died that day with Vicey.

When she died in her sleep a week 'fore she turned
a hunnerd an' seven,
I hope she was finally able to forgive herself.

(Dedicated to MeeMaw Aug. 7, 1889—July 30, 1995)

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