She was born there in that cabin, at the edge of the tree line. Mama was a God-fearing woman who never missed church on Sunday and who took washing in from the houses on the hill. Daddy was a hard-working sharecropper who grew just enough to keep his family alive from harvest to harvest.
She helped her mother with cleaning, canning, and the wash, while her brothers learned young how to plow with the mule. At age ten, Mr. Smith took a shine to her when she delivered the laundry on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays she was always home late and Mama fussed at her dawdling.
When Brother told Daddy why, Daddy shot Mr. Smith dead with his deer rifle. They hung Daddy for it. Mama and us kids moved on.
These memories were left here with the trees.
Until today.
[140 words]
Merril is the host of dVerse today. Merril says:
I decided to take a line from the new US poet laureate, Jo Harjo. I was going to write more about her, but I thought perhaps people would not want her background to influence their own work. So, you can read about her here.
You can also find links to some of her other poems there, and there are many lines that would have worked for this prompt. I’ve selected this line:
“These memories were left here with the trees”
from the poem “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War.” You can read the entire poem here.
Image is “Cabin Viewed from Rear with Wash Line” by: William Aiken Walker
Good piece– gives me a stomach ache—- then, again, it should
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Thank you, Tim.
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Boy, you change up styles in the blink of the eye. Rocking the prompt, this reads like the lyrics to a Dolly Parton ballad.
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Wow. Good one, Lisa!
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Oh well done! Too many tragedies like this.
(I almost went in this direction after spending the other day reading and writing about Larry Nassar.)
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Good and unfortunately a believable story.
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Great story telling.
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Excellent story telling
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Glenn, thanks, wherever the spirit takes me. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
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Susan, thank you.
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Merril, thank you, yes there are.
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Thank you, Max, I wish it wasn’t.
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Sadje, thank you.
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Thank you, Toni.
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Thank you for the story.
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Well done Jade! I like your twist as the story moves along!
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You are welcome.
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You’re welcome dear
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Thanks much, Dwight.
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I like the way you took me straight into that cabin, Jade, and I felt I knew the family. Such a devastating ending.
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Kim thanks and I wish there was never an ending like that.
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Too many of these memories hanging around…(K)
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I like the terseness of the language when you reveal how it ended… I can really feel the weight of the secrets revealed.
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I like the simplicity of your story, but the “Until today” distracts from it for me..it suggests something that is totally up in the air after a perfect ending in the line before. Well done. I really get a sense of the innocence and simplicity of the young girl and the unfairness of the hanging of the father…I also like your illustration.
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Thank you, Bjorn, for your useful feedback.
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Thank you, Judy. I appreciate seeing the poem with your eyes.
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This is storytelling at its finest. So well done Lisa!
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Linda, thank you very much.
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A real story, that underlying reactive side of humanity that brings so much pain.
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