Laundry on the Line

 

Laundry on the line freshly flapping

away the day of another mundane adventure,

pinned hastily with four-inch split wood pins,

wrinkle knuckle scrubbed across 

a well-worn and wisdom weathered washboard,

hung habitually by time twisted hands

to breeze blow into the gentleness of sunnier days.

Laundry on the line faithfully flapping

away the drowsy days of sweet morning dew rains

where a dozen born babes woke crying on

into dark, haunting nights that duty beckoned

eager sons, too soon men grown to war, 

never to return to romp rowdy again amongst the sheets of

Laundry on the line forever flapping

away the suds of baptism, wrung redeemed

from stubborn soot, that silently clung to cobwebs

over the mounting pile of ashes that stalked the corner woodstove,

warmly welcomed by her loom-braided carpet of stains

where tired old hound laid to howl his bloody-pawed pain

of a fleeting dusk, chasing hares into 

the midst of a ripe boysenberry thicket.

Laundry on the line fatefully flapping

away the day where everyone's mother, 

sweat-drenched alone and dry mouth haggard

from a fever's fury, drew her last breath whisper 

to no one, upon a sunken pillow filled with 

gathered, softest downy goose feathers, 

now soaked with years of a thousand dried tears.

Laundry on the line forsaken and flapping  

away the day when the black collar clad pastor 

rushed to read an Ephesian epitaph

across a grave singing of an old, rugged cross

marked by a handful of a grandchild's wildflowers.

Buried there she sleeps deep alongside a withered old man

she barely knew but loved her lifetime.  

~P.S. Colley~

c. 2026

Songs of Appalachia