Storyteller

Storyteller

pgallaher copyright@2018

In the years before he died (one month short of ninety-nine)

Grandaddy used to comment how “the world has changed too awful much.”

Born in the nineteenth century he had uncles who fought for the South

dragged their mangled bodies home, haunted by Shiloh, they lived to tell.  

Grandaddy recalled their tales to us, Uncle Eli saved by an Indian,

Grandaddy’s mother was Cherokee, he liked stories where the Indians prevailed.

Blind for decades, he knew our voices, knew our faces, our hands.

With crippled fingers, he dialed the phone, talked with a young friend, eighty.

Long bare of teeth, his sunken mouth etched in permanent contentment, he

recalled the snake bite when he was five, showed his stick leg, his gnarled foot.

Told how an aeroplane traversed the skies ‘long about nineteen ten, and Riley,

the little-bit-crazy brother, cried, “Go back, Jesus!  Don’t take me yet!”

Grandaddy listened to the radio, cut a plug of tobacco with his dull pocket knife,

spit into a can, hardly ever missed, sang along with Opry tunes. 

He witnessed the passing of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, a grandson, too.

Grand Ole Opry performers died and Grandaddy’s music died with them.

Toward the end, he rocked and hummed and talked to himself – no audience left,

no one his age still living – all of us busy in our fast-changing world.

End of an era when Grandaddy died, I wish I remembered more of his tales,

wish I’d taken notes about the world before it changed so awful much.

www.phyllisgobbell.com