Mary McCarthy Verse-Virtual 2017 July

July 2017

I have always been a writer, but spent most of my working life as a Registered Nurse. I have had work published in many online and print journals, including Third Wednesday and Earth’s Daughters, and have recently had an e chapbook, Things I was Told Not to Think About, available as a free download from Praxis Magazine. We have recently moved to Florida, where we are enjoying the birds, dolphins and manatees of the Indian River.

my Great Aunt Marie with her favorite nephew, my dad.

Great Aunt Marie

She came down from her
Garden in the fields
To meet us. At 84
Still tall and elegant
As an oak
With rich black dirt
Lining her hands.

She gave us cold
Water and new carrots
And a roaring stream
Of stories
About the people so
Brown and sedate in the old photos
She spread over our laps,
Introducing her fifteenth
Great-grandchild
And a long-gone aunt
Who took her place
In the family
By riding a goat
Through the front yard
In her wedding dress—
The infant and the eccentric
Parentheses for a parade
That ranged between
Births, deaths, marriages,
Romance, intrigue,
Revenges, and the worst hurt
Unpunished still,
Heavy on her mind.

Like the earth she works
So many times a mother
Life comes
Easy as breath to her,
And the generations follow
Like a train of stars.

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