From Miz Quickly. Look around you. Write down the first color you notice, and the second. That's the title of your poem. Write about yourself as a child, and use those two colors as a point of reference.
Elegy In Brown and Gray
Sundays we went to Grandma's;
homemade stuffed cabbage,
pierogi with onions and butter,
darkly-brown piernik heavy
with anise and peppery ginger.
Memories clogged those somber gray rooms,
oppressive as the burnt-brown
cooking smells trapped in airless corners.
cooking smells trapped in airless corners.
She'd rewind the past, over and over,
glass brooch glinting on her ample bosom.
Life revolved around church,
feast days, holy days.
And her superstitions; howling dogs
and phantom knocking heralded
arrival of death.
When the Dark Angel appeared,
Grandma covered mirrors, stopped clocks,
recited fifty Hail Mary's from her post
recited fifty Hail Mary's from her post
on angry arthritic knees,
muttering and clutching worn beads.
muttering and clutching worn beads.
Her stories live on, jumbled in my head.
It's not so much what I remember
as what I will never forget.
And I wonder, who will keep them,
who will tell them, when I'm gone.
