VIOLET HYACINTH HAINES
(1894-1982)
Violet
Elsie
BettyAnne
September 1982
Day when it broke
scrubbed its face roughly
My sister Annette and I enter the simple white clapboard church
on the banks of the Pleasant River
Begin our strange and surreal walk
past pews of forgotten faces
The casket freshly clamped
Cramped side by side
on the narrow oak pew
tightly we clasp hands
I. Will. Not. Cry.
This is the last rose
from our Hebbville garden
her niece Ruby says.
I picked and put it
in the casket beside her
I hope you don't mind.
Somewhere in the dark
it lies quiet. Wilted
For 38 years I breathed
in her strength
A child warmly cushioned
in the old rocking chair
Her neck soft and fragrant
The rest of them are bony, she whispers
Old-fashioned jasmine gently puffs its sweet
breath past her
sitting room curtains
in those long lost
summers
Six decades before
she buried her own cholera children
At 45, brought her
husband Arch, that good man, to Cemetery Hill
They never
spoke a harsh word
to each other,
my mother says
Raised two other
daughters
Then two sons
On this crisp
autumn afternoon
my mind enters
again the old
one-room school
Sits huddled close
to
the small blazing
boxstove
Watches as she
no longer my Nannie
but 'Teacher'
opens to page 1 of
my primer
\Here I am. My
name is Nan.
I have a doll.
I have a cat too.
She taught me the
fragrance of love
at closing time I touched
her cold cheek
Rigid
No longer human
Tonight the airplane noses
its way up through the cloud
Dusk becomes glorious
Nose pressed to the window
I search for her footprints.
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