Sample Poems by Naton Leslie
Emma Readies for
a Party
Got up early this morning,
couldn't stay in bed any longer
as my back bothers me.
Have to be up and ready.
Don't have to spend the day
cleaning as I have a lady
who does it for me now.
I'll be 78 on the 24th.
The PA Farmers Mutual is having
its banquet. My husband Will
helped start it when the farmers
figured they could get together
and rebuild what burned.
When the Ritter farm failed,
Will took their two hundred acres
of rock, and a dry herd.
Got a nice dress for the banquet.
I always dread it, but then I go
and have a good time--except
last year. Some of those bitches
from the big farms brought pies
--they didn't make them either.
Then one of them had nerve
enough to comment on my crust.
She had just had an operation
on a boil on her face, one eye
covered in a pirate patch.
Flat, she said, No flake to it.
I worked half the morning
on pies and bread and now
these fancy fannies were talking.
I wheeled around, lifted her
patch and smacked her right on
the boil. You should've seen
her go down. Will said later
I was a hard woman to take
anywhere. I just laughed.
Emma Adds to Her Story
Two more things. First,
the reason they called
the place where Flossie's
people lived Lost Stocking Ridge
was because one time a peddler
came to Kittanning selling stockings
and other nice things for women.
He made his rounds, then asked
about a short-cut to Dubois
as he was behind schedule.
They sent him up the logging road,
what is now route 29, which goes
up around Hawthorn and Frogtown.
Well, he ran into a bunch of them
moonshiners up on the ridge.
They caught him and killed him,
I said they were bad news,
even worse when they were all
hopped up on hootch. They went
wild and threw his stockings
and such all over the mountainside.
They blew around up there
for weeks, and that's how
they knew the peddler was dead.
And that's why it was called that.
Second, my sister Olivia.
I didn't like her because
she was mean and lazy.
She thought she was prettier
than me and took a man
I was spending time with
just to prove it. She didn't
even like him, but she knew
he was sweet on me. The way
some people will behave.
She could be the very devil,
so I disliked her very much.
That's all I need
to say about that.
Emma Goes Back to the Home-place
We canned two bushels of peaches.
There are lots of tomatoes
for eating but they're not
ripening too fast so we can
keep up with them. We don't
have the flowers we used to.
My husband Will's garden was full
of dill and he's been fighting it
all summer. I made dill pickles,
though I can't eat them. I want
to finish so I can replant violets.
I have two and three in a pot.
Last week I took a notion to get
some of mother's lamb's tail,
and figured it was still growing
down on the old home-place,
even though the land has been
fifty years wild, most of it
strip-mined. So yesterday we took
a ride down to Sherret. Things
have grown up something awful,
lots of farms have gone back.
We parked and I took Will back
the old lane, and at the bottom
of the mountain steps we found
a stand of those long white
blossoms--must have been a good
year for them, they were all over.
Mother had them up by the porch,
on the mountaintop, but now
they've seeded themselves below.
I dug down and got a good clump
and put it in a cardboard box.
We didn't go up to the old place.
The steps are gone, and I'm sure
the house is too.
Next we visited one of my old
girlfriends. She was married
to a friend of my first husband.
I haven't seen them since my son
was born nearly sixty years ago.
Even their neighbor knew me,
but for a while I kept them guessing.
I had been Sunday school secretary
and she was treasurer. When I told
her that, she had forgot. She has
turned kind of shaky. I said:
I am Emma Dobson, but I used to be
Peggy Lindsay, and before that
Margaret Woster. I didn't go
into how I got all those names,
but I was born Emma Margaret,
then each of my husbands called
me a name to go with theirs.
She knew me by my first and cried
My God and hugged me. I imagine
there's lots of folks I still know
all over down there, if I could
keep up with where they've gone.
I made them acquainted with Will.