ARLY

It was north of Chandler 1939,

My granddad with the blue killer eyes

Hughie Earp reading by kerosene lamp light

A shoot'em-up dime-store western,

Much to the surprise of the brown-

Eyed farm lad come courting,

Later to be my father

And recall to me that scene

Glimpsed through an opening door,

And even then he not fooled by such

Display of weakness for the word

In this known hardshod

Horse trader who still had

The first nickel he'd ever made,

This pale-eyed reader

Rocklike in washed out overalls

Whose livestock had a new windmill

While Arly carried water

Up the hill and longed for town.

In the photo I have of them, made

From a discarded negative after Grandpa died,

Hughie looks straight into the lens,

Arly wears a black church-going hat,

Her gaze gone out grimly away from his.

Arly daily carried the water

For the kitchen and table and bath

Up a hundred-yard slope

Of red-clay rocky Lincoln County hill

Silently by hand.

I remember a Sunday once

With whoops and chants

She gathered up her skirts

And showed us how the Sac and Fox danced.

                   -------------------

Taken from "Oklahoma Elegies, Chronicles and Family History"

by Wayne Pounds