A Poem for a Thursday #57

Faith Shearin is an American writer who has published five volumes of poetry. She won the May Swenson Award. I didn’t find much information about her but I like this poem.

They are taking so many things with them:
their sewing machines and fine china,


their ability to fold a newspaper
with one hand and swat a fly.


They are taking their rotary telephones,
and fat televisions, and knitting needles,


their cast iron frying pans, and Tupperware.
They are packing away the picnics


and perambulators, the wagons
and church socials. They are wrapped in


lipstick and big band music, dressed
in recipes. Buried with them:  bathtubs


with feet, front porches, dogs without leashes.
These are the people who raised me


and now I am left behind in 
a world without paper letters,


a place where the phone
has grown as eager as a weed.


I am going to miss their attics,
their ordinary coffee, their chicken


fried in lard. I would give anything 
to be ten again, up late with them


in that cottage by the river, buying
Marvin Gardens and passing go,


collecting two hundred dollars. 


My Grandparent’s Generation
Faith Shearin

Brona has shared a poem this week.