The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Not a new one, but...

Never grow bitter

Bare feet, faded denims,
long straight black hair
turning prematurely grey.
A waist-high Irish Wolfhound 
stands placidly alongside.
Leashed on a thick rope,
with a leather bound loop
around her skinny wrist,
jostling for space with blue beads
and a well worn mystery plait.

A Grandma by thirty,
a great Gran before forty five.
She'll be nearing sixty now,
heading for grand matriarch status.

A life lived 'on the wild side',
but still strangely innocent.
Some people roll with the blows,
own their own mistakes,
and never grow bitter.

Gyppo

Stellar narrative, G. You really flesh it out at the end.

I note that your MC is doing 3 generations for one in my family.

One of the [few] amenities of living a long life is that you can make long-term observations. Especially of people. I notice my opinion of folks can change immensely over the arc of time, and as my understanding [hopefully] deepens.

A semi-related anecdote -- While in my thirties I attended a funeral for a neighbor who had lived a long life. One of the surviving old-timers at the funeral disparaged the deceased as we stood outside the church in view of the decedent's homestead. The grove was in poor shape, with most the the trees down, and the others appearing like they would soon join them. "I told him when he planted his grove he was planting the wrong trees. I told him those trees don't last long enough. He just wouldn't listen to me." The speaker was perhaps 95 at the time. It was my first glimpse of the matter of growing old enough to comment from experience on the life expectancy of trees.

So. . . .

T

Perspective definitely changes with age.  Your own basic principles and personality may stay relatively static, (or so my friends and family tell me), but your view on others tends to become broader.  Although there are cases where it hardens down to a fixed dislike/distrust, which is often well founded.

Trees tend to put human life in perspective

Gyppo 

 

I like this, Gyp.

Lots of thoughts tumblng through my head now.

A pleasant poem with an enjoyable pay off and sentiment
Dave
 

Dave wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:48 am

A pleasant poem with an enjoyable pay off and sentiment
Dave
 

Cheers, Dave.  Often that's all I'm after.  No great message, no mental gymnastics or obscure intellectual references.  A compressed short story in some ways.  A shorthand character sketch.

I've not seen her for a few years now, but I first met her when she was about thirteen.  I was repainting a bike frame, a nice little part time earner, when I became aware of being watched.  I turned to see a cheeky little grin hanging around the corner of my garage door and a surprisingly husky voice asking "Whatcha doing, Mister?"

For some reason she adopted me as her confidante and amused and occasionally horrified me with all her 'wild child' adventures.  I suspect I became the big brother she never had.  If there was ever anything else in her attention I never noticed it.

Echoes of her turn up occasionally in my fiction.

Gyppo 
 

Trees tend to put human life in perspective

That line needs a poem

The poem does achieve a 'pay-off' for the reader. Many poems don't achieve. Not contrived, delivers.

enjoyed

Phil

Cheers, Phil.

Gyppo

 

The most outstanding image: an Irish wolfhound tethered to her skinny wrist--it says so much about a way with animals, trust, not to mention relative size and strength in some kind of balance. Great set-up for the rest of the piece.

On face value this appears to be an extremely dysfunctional family.
But you humanise it well. And after all, many apparently happy, 'functional' families are far from that.
Like the finish. Old and wise doesn't refer to accumulated knowledge. The few wise old people I 'tap into' are
flexible thinkers who shock their contemporaries