ARCHIVES OF THE HOW-IT-WAS CLUB

 

Let�s say a Methodist Church basement.

Gathered are the children of an absent-minded God,

themselves absent clear vision, absent the concise hand

needed for captioning the scalloped-edged glimpses

of how they got by, their common history,

quilting, canning, butchering hogs,

that will seem exotic to their children�s children

with an assigned interest in local color.

 

Someone laid hands on a cassette recorder.

They cackle and croon.  They sign on,

this is Sallie Murphy, born nineteen hundred and four,

as though these reminiscences are a radio show.

Come on, granny, get to it,

but she�s more interested in telling us who

than what and what�s what we need

for our current purposes.

This is a different country

and we can�t get graded on which cousin

or visitor from Ohio helped prime tobacco.

We need the low down on gutting a hog.

Wasn�t there blood involved?

 

This is what happens

when you let people tell their own story.

There�s no hurry, no precision,

so very little we can use.

 

 

Michael Chitwood