Every Hand a Rainbow
This time is tied to that time, and this creature to another—that’s what this Appalachian laureate shows us in two poems about children, grandchildren, a dog, and our own bodies.
FOSTERING MY GRANDDOG WHILE MY SON RECOVERED FROM SURGERY
By day six, all elbows and nerves,
worry like an earworm fidgeting its fester,
I’d planned to whisk up a stack cake,
the apple filling already tender,
sorghum soaked, a boil up
of cider vinegar to balance the sweet,
but our brown hound was unconsolable,
my low-carb peanut butter treats
a joy when he arrived, now snubbed.
No squeaky toy or fetch-a-stick
could set that slow tail to wag.
So I lay alongside him
in the orchardgrass that green
spring morning, a wooly sun
pawing our grey-bearded bones.
He spooned into me
like an exhausted toddler.
I rubbed his back until he slept,
then draped an arm,
cradling, cooing lullabies,
the same I sang to my boy long ago,
listened to his muffles and snorts,
a butterfly trying to make sense
of my sandaled toes,
the pines swirling potpourri.
We woke to the hoot and splash
of a gaggle of goldfinch, a blur
of wings and tiny talons
hopscotching along the creek.
CAMP MEEMAW
Charcoal and a portable grill,
scraped legs and sunburns,
it’s summer and my grandkin
are excited to overnight
in our old Army tent.
I toss a checkered cloth across
the picnic table, set out condiments,
slice fresh-picked watermelon.
Along the concrete slab
where the table anchors,
the grands chalk stick figures
of each other while licking popsicles,
their orange, cherry and lime green tongues
recreated, drawn dramatically elongated,
frog-thwacking each other’s
fabricated cheeks, the sound effects
from the youngest of the three
cracking me up—pow-a-wow-ie,
toot-toot. Toot like a fart, he giggles,
every hand a rainbow.
Tired of arting, a run for the pond
begins with a challenge
from the middle moppet,
Last one in eats bird poop,
which the eldest claims quite offensive
to the Canada goose couple
who have nested this land
for the past seven summers,
part of the family now, their babies
out there swimming with my own.
Someone shouts Come swim, Meemaw,
but there are burgers to flip, last touches
for the salads, bacon to chop for the beans.
A troublesome jolt in my right hip
reminds me bones don’t last forever.
I slap half-cooked patties on a Melmac plate,
cover them with another, run for the beach
singing toot-toot, farty-fart,
a gosh-o-boy sunset streaking peach and scarlet.
Later, every dinner plate filled and emptied,
I snap portraits of sleepy yawners
browning marshmallows around the fire,
watch as many of those puffs disintegrate
in a poof of flame and yelps of fire in the hole,
click on the flash to highlight the chalk art,
my smart phone hoarding details
I will someday struggle to recall.
About the author
Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour is the author of three collections of poetry and is the recipient of a POTY Award, Storytrade Award, Legacy Award and Best Book Award. She is a Pillars of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio and the executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project. Her work has been featured in theAmerican Book Review, World Literature Today,The New York TimesandPoem-a-Day.
- Kari Gunter-Seymourhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/kari-gunter-seymour/
