Archive of New Mexico Poetry – Donald Levering

Grandpa

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
–Woody Gutherie

Grandma’s thumb was so green,
if she wanted, she could grow
square plums.
She could turn her husband’s
harvest blisters
into greenback bundles.
Mother told me so
and so it’s true.

From Missouri to California
Grandpa rambled in his youth.
So I shall be his godfather
and make of him a man
who hung around the camp
where families slept in cardboard shacks waiting for the telegram
from Washington that says to build the dam.

While he waited for his job
he honed his fiddle’s voice.
He found some men with banjos
and guitars, and they joined
a pair of sisters whose songs
took on everybody’s longing.
They blended all their voices
and turned that shantytown to song.

Well that telegram never came.
And Grandpa got so hungry he gnawed
on splinters. He got so cold
he couldn’t finger his fiddle.
So he bundled his belongings
and hopped a freight to Arizona
where he helped build a trestle
with his fiddle and his worried songs.

About the Poet
Donald Levering’s work has appeared widely, in over a hundred literary journals. Look for more in the anthology issue of Santa Fe Poetry Broadside on the Web at http://www.rt66.com/~sfpoetry/