The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #74240 Message #1293624
Posted By: Joe Offer
10-Oct-04 - 02:19 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Grandmother's Song (Pierce Pettis)
Subject: ADD: Grandmother's Song (Pierce Pettis)
Gee, what a powerful song! -Joe Offer-
Grandmother's Song (Pierce Pettis)
My grandmother wrote poetry That she rarely let other people read And the words were sweet though they never did meet With critical acclaim But the ones who read it often said This ought to be published This ought to be read But she would not agree And they said it was a shame
That the world could Continue to turn Unaware and unconcerned And never even know it That she was a poet A poet in her own time
From the time she was a gangly girl Her books took her off to another world Of Ivanhoe, Henry David Thoreau, and Edgar Allan Poe But in Mississippi people don't generally read They just look at pictures in magazines So it's not a surprise that she kept to herself And spent her time alone
And she did pretty well in school She went to teacher's college too But the teachers didn't know it That she was a poet A poet in her own time
Well, she met and she married a railroad man She didn't do so much writing then His work made him travel about "Southern Serves the South" And the Great Depression swept on in Like a cold, unexpected northern wind He forgot to come home one day And she was left with three kids to raise
And there was nothing else a woman could do Except to draw her paycheck Teaching school And the pupils didn't know it But teacher was a poet A poet in her own time
Now my grandmother lies in a crumpled bed And at night she hears voices in her head And the family worries in the whispering dark If she's got her religion right It's a hardening of the arteries It's a softening of the mind And I mean to go and see her, but I Cannot ever seem to find the time
And at the nurses' station at night They work crossword puzzles by the switchboard light And the nurses don't know it But grandma was a poet A poet in her own time
Yeah the nurses don't know it But grandma is a poet A poet in her own time