the lone teenager walked down the creosote wood pier; the visored lady warriors loomed over him; he crossed the brow, saluting the Ensign on the fantail as he had been trained before descending into the bowels of the ship, returning to the 01 level below the bridge to stand at parade rest while his visored lady warrior stood out of Narragansett Bay to his first time at sea, which became his new home.
the wind combed his hair; the night cold gave him strength: the trail of the moon gave him peace; while standing at the rail one evening, the mistress of the sea reached up to grab his heart; the green water forging over the bow washed his soul; the doldrums taught him patience; the stars to navigate by showed him the way; the heels and rolls of his warrior brought him balance; the thickened, old, black coffee gave him endurance; water spouts, flying fish; dolphins playing across and under the bow; clear nights with millions, millions of stars and planets, the swish of the bow wake down the sides; the dark clouds and their lightning; the angry storms of immense proportion; the cloudless days with light winds with every hue of blue of the sea; showed him awe-striking beauty; eventually, he discovered the sea’s mistress who had took his heart would talk to him and he to her; and life at sea fit him.
finally, he left his visored lady warriors and the sea’s mistress to roam the roads of his world for a while before he returned to the small town of his birth in the heart of Tennessee to be interred beside his folks: he had finally come back home.
Patricia Raye Boggs, Maureen’s older sister, passed away last night at the Lemon Grove Rehabilitation Center, (Lemon Grove is the town where she was raised).
i will elaborate oyn my feelings here later. This is a tough one. Her family is taking it well.
Patsy was tough, strong, intelligent, talented, and loving to a fault. i will miss her greatly.
The photo below the poem shows the three sisters and their mother, my grandmother, “Granny.” She was the grandmother to the herd of us and she attended to all of us, helping out our own mothers when needed. The two sisters, my aunts, were second mothers for me. i honor all of them, today especially, but pretty much all of the time.
Ode to Three Sisters and Their Mother
The old lady came busting out of the old century; where she had been an exquisite china doll of immeasurable beauty; young men chased her to allowable limits in the Victorian South after we turned from reconstruction while Teddy was roustabouting with Spain in that little skirmish we often forget. Remember the Maine.
But Granny came busting out; fire in her belly, grit in her craw, pluck in her spirit, gleam in her eye; with the handsome man who won the chase, taking her and his bloodhounds to the retired circuit rider’s farm out on the pike where Granny’s circuit rider father would preach occasionally without the horse or mule in the hamlet of Lebanon, smack dab in the middle of Tennessee, Where some bright folks built the square over a cold water spring they discovered in “Town Creek” in yet an earlier century.
…and the children would come around wartime, dropping among the years of the first big one we resisted until the Luisitania took its hit and sank like a rock; …and the children came, five in all until one died as young family members often did in those pre-antibiotic days. The handsome blood hound man who chased criminals through the woods took his own hit, a decade after the war. So the little maelstrom with grit in her craw packed up the chillun’s and the belongings making the trek to the groves of central Florida for a couple of years to escape the sinking of the hound man and the attendant feelings thereof.
In thirty-two, they came back home, each with some grit in their craw. Granny, the queen of grit, went to work, taking care of those who needed care outside the family in order to take care of her own.
…and the children grew up early, cooking the meals, washing the clothes, cleaning the house, gathering eggs, milking the cows, pulling the weeds; before playing ball, earning money until they went to college in the little town, or went to work, or both.
The second big war came, again in a wave of terror, This time in an atoll’s pristine harbor, taking hits, sinking to the shallow harbor depths. Remember the Arizona. The brother went off to war after marrying a woman of another religion from down the road, west a bit, in the big city. He flew a plane named after his lady Colleen, returning to the Tennessee hamlet, still with fire in his belly, grit in his craw, pluck in spirit, gleam in his eye before leaving for the orange groved paradise he found on the southern trek several years before.
The preacher man was gone; The hound man was gone; The brother was gone; The three sisters and their mother, fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes, with their three new men stared at the world, staring it down straight in the eye, wearing it down with their labor until the world cried “uncle,” admiring their fire and grit and pluck.
There were circles entwined with circles of family; the circles orbited around the threes sisters and their mother: all was well. …and the world rolled on; Granny finally gave up her pluckish ghost with grit in her craw; no longer would she braid the waist long hair, tying the braids atop her head as she had done for so many years; the three sisters rallied with fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes.
The grandchildren of the matriarch spread with the four winds, remembering. When the circles got together, the three sisters remained the constant, demanding the world stay in their orbit, and the world was warm with laughter and love and a sense the world was safe as long as they all inherited fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit; gleam in their eyes. The world is older; Granny is gone; the youngest sister recently joining her, the oldest failing fast: The three sisters leaving us slowly with the fire waning to embers, but still there is grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes; staring down the world.
Such a lovely world they have shown us.
Aunt Bettye Kate Hall, Aunt Evelyn Orr, my mother Estelle Jewell, and Katherine Prichdard, our grandmother, and “Granny” to everyone (1971).
Maureen and i come from a long line of mothers with grit.
Maureen has inherited grit, beauty, and love from her mother.
She is, to put it mildly, incredible. She is the mother of Sarah and the other mother to Blythe and she loves, supports, and relates to each of them without condition.
She and her sister Patsy are like mothers to each other.
i love her.
Of course, my mother was pretty phenomenal as well — more about her in a later post.
And then, there was another mother, Blythe’s mother Kathie. There was no limit to her love for Blythe and grandson Sam.
There used to be such a place named “Cloud Nine.” It was in San Diego in September 1982 somewhere on El Cajon Boulevard.
JD Waits and i were moving Maureen’s furniture. Her apartment mate moved to another town and Maureen was looking for another apartment. In the interim, she was going to move her stuff to her father’s garage while she searched. JD and i were in the Coronado Cays and we volunteered to move her stuff in JD’s pickup from Banker’s Hill to Lemon Grove. En route, we passed that place.
JD spotted it and said it truly was Cloud Nine. Then he explained”
“Well, it was a beer bar downstairs, a massage parlor upstairs, and a motel in the back.”
