GRANDMA'S FRONT PORCH

The world comes to your door if ya let it
Is what Grandma use to say to me.
I guess that’s why her front porch was so full
With rocking chairs, big talkers and she.

Anything and everything was brought up
From politics to the preacher and war
She said we’d solve all of the world’s problems
Just by rocking on that wooden floor.

Folks always came a callin’ on Grandma
Her iced tea and pound cake were so fine
They went down as easy as the sunset
Straight west through that big woods fulla pines.

Nowadays folks don’t know about porches
How the world’s problems were once solved there
They’ve passed on as a sweet reflection
With my Grandma and her rocking chair.
@Copyright 2006 Scarlet's Rhymes - The above picture was provided by Graphics By Tiggheart. All poetry and pictures posted on this site can not to be copied or reproduced in any manner on the World Wide Web or any other published form without the written permission of the author/creator at scarlet@rhymecreek.com

Purple Hull Peas aka Southern Peas

Purple hull peas take me back a ways
A much different time than nowadays
When you planted a garden for a whole crowd
And getting out of chores was not allowed

You planted and watered, picked and shelled
Stopping only for the dinner bell
If you wanted to eat what was grown
You kept on working without a moan

Back then the “grocery store” was the farm
You worked with your family arm and arm
And, what was grown thru blood, sweat and tears
Had to last the family for the year

After the harvests and the shelling
Came the canning with no rebelling
All went in jars after the water boiled
That was to make sure that nothing spoiled

Then, in the dead of winter, you see
Out came jars filled with purple hull peas
There were beans, corn and some tomatoes too
The pantry was filled with “what we grew”

A garden is seldom grown these days
People spend their time in other ways
But, the truth is those days were sublime
Southern peas, family and canning time
@Copyright 2006 Scarlet's Rhymes - The above and all poetry and pictures posted on this site can not to be copied or reproduced in any manner on the World Wide Web or any other published form without the written permission of the author/creator at scarlet@rhymecreek.com

Chumuckla

Farmland filled with peanuts and cotton
Machines harvesting on time
It’s so great to visit Chumuckla
When the crops are in their prime!

To walk through the old cemetery
Seeing familiar names there
Wishing I could talk to so many
Hearing stories they might share

Inside Elizabeth Chapel’s walls
I still hear that organ play
Sweet Aunt Mary in her stocking feet
Played hymns while I sat and prayed.

So many memories of Chumuckla
Fill my heart and fill my mind
Made yesterday and all other days
I can feel them intertwine.

I never lived in this special place
How strange it might seem to you
That I write of my private feelings
From a distant point of view.

The commissary’s big candy case
The noise of that cotton gin
Catching a catfish at Aunt Clara’s
I can still see her sweet grin.

Growing up there must have been special
But, I still feel lucky too
I’m part of the Chumuckla “family”
Forever saying Thank You!
@Copyright 2006 Scarlet's Rhymes - The above and all poetry and pictures posted on this site can not to be copied or reproduced in any manner on the World Wide Web or any other published form without the written permission of the author/creator at scarlet@rhymecreek.com