FROM THE “SAVANNAH IDYL” COLLECTION
Now girl!
On the faith of your Christian mother
don’t open the doors today!
It’s going to be a very warm time.
I love Georgia in the summer,
but it does get hot!
The air can get so oppressive.
It’s like the moss on the trees.
When I’m at Bonaventure Cemetery
the ground is so cool, I think,
child,
if I have to go,
put me in this pretty place
and have a Koolaid.
I wouldn’t mind if you sat on my stone,
know what I mean?
And pass the time awhile.
My grandmother used to come and stay,
and tell me,
now child, run and play,
I’m talking to your grandfather
and some of it’s not meant
for little ears.
But I hid behind a stone
and listened anyway,
but I never heard my grandfather talk,
and my grandmother cried a little bit,
paying the rent and family things.
I liked it when she talked about me.
She called me angel pie,
and sometimes
I hinted that I heard,
and she thought I was hearing ghosts,
and asked me
to tell her what I heard.
It was a game we played.
But I knew it wasn’t for her.
She missed my grandfather,
and sometimes fell asleep,
and I’d be alarmed and think she died,
and I said, Grandma,
it ain’t time yet,
you’re breathing!
And she’d wake and hold me,
and we’d walk home to Bull Street,
and she’d pour me another
glass of Koolaid,
and sing to herself.
That’s how I remember her,
my Grandmother singing.