Memory Poem, My Favorite Uncle Howard - Weekend Challenge
 
  
Memories; 
of Places and Persons 
Memories can fail one
Memories can remind 
Memories bring pleasure 
Memories do not lie 
Memories of a man
Man in the spring cornfield 
He and this boy walked corn  
Hoes in hands they ambled 
Cocklebur or milkweed
Beware green invaders 
Our hoes will chop you down 
Get their roots man would say 
While walking the man would
Yodel and sing a song 
One the boy wouldn't know 
He'd stand amazed.  Radio? 
Yes Country and Western
Their singers' voices loud 
Man in corn, high pitch voice  
Boy tried to imitate 
Memories of the man
Cornfield again, ripened 
Leaves and stalks turned to brown 
Shucking corn, harvest's good 
Now walking rows again
Snapping each ear of corn 
Away from its brown stalk 
Tossing in the wagon 
Two horses pulling slowly
Down those rows, knew their way 
Stopping on command, wait 
For man, boy, to catch up 
Man was Uncle Howard
Most people didn't know 
How well he could yodel 
For sure to pre teen boy 
Memory's last setting
Hospital room, last days 
He prayed for every nurse 
Boy now man, last visit  
Memories last until 
We remember no more 
Uncles yodeling still
In Heaven's gold cornfields _ _ _ _
- This one is true.
- Photo and Poem Copyright © 2010 and 2017 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved
- I'm linked with Kim Russell , at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Weekend Mini Challenge: People and Places, http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/05/weekend-mini-challenge-people-and.html
Kim's in part instructions: "Today’s challenge is to write about a place through a person or a person through a place." After I finished I notice the word, "Mini". My poem sure isn't very mini.
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Excerpt from my previous blog:
"Uncle Howard was Dad's youngest brother, two years younger than Dad. I felt that I was his favorite nephew; he called me "Jimmy." My best remembrance of him is that he could yodel. He is the only person I know or have known who could yodel. He yodeled good, very good. He would only yodel when nobody was around, except me.
Uncle Howard's favorite song was Cattle Call:
"The cattle are prowlin'
The coyotes are howlin'
Way out where the doggies roam
Where the spurs are a jinglin'
And the cowboy is singin'
His lonesome cattle call
[Yodels]
He rides in the sun'
Til his days work is done,
And he rounds up the cattle each fall
[Yodels]
Singing his cattle call"
I still like to sing that song when nobody is around too. And I try to yodel. Uncle Howard never sang in public either. Not even in church. ... (More ... )"
Labels: Family, Jim Does, Poem, Syllabic Form



7 Comments:
Yodeling is such a cool talent!
What a great tribute to Uncle Howard, Jim. It sounds like he had a big influence on you. I'd never heard of cocklebur or milkweed, so I looked them up and now I know that they are poisonous to livestock, which explains the third stanza. The only yodeller I ever heard was Frank Ifield, who I rather liked when I was a little girl!
This special!
Luv your placement of memories. Sure he's yodelling in Heaven too
Much love...
Perfect, love this snapshot, Jim.
I have a sense that your uncle is still alive in a way.. all those places and the scents combined with the yodel... I think he is still inside you, you should learn to yodel
so vivid images you gave...feeling nostalgic somehow...!
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