Sifting Out The Silly

So much of it has been a dusty waste

Like mold on a good, old book

It can never really be totally wiped away

Maybe sponged and dried, smeared a bit

But still there, dammit, just under the surface

Wrecking my smile.

I look old now when I glimpse my face in the mirror

Thinking I am combed and groomed enough

But the day shows my wear, the tears in my fibre

The tears in my eyes, wet enough sometimes to

Roll down to my chin, lower now than ever before.

We just don’t last long… not like a few decades back

My Para Med client had said that we “keep good these days”

But my thirties are long gone… dusty now, yes the dirty thirties!

I am sad when Kelli sings the song, “The Cows Aren’t Comin’ Home”

That was my Dad too… walking the fields in old coveralls

Baggy pant legs and rolled up white shirts, crooked straw hat

But he looked like the best man in the whole world to me.

It was so very sad when the cows went away one last time

Never again would I trod through high grass with my brother

To find the cows grazing, but ready to come to the barn for

The “milkin’” … Milkin’ time had a real ring to it

It meant all the animals inside the barn, cozy, busy, warm

The cats came from afar to catch the spray of milk in the air

Dad and Glenn squirting the milk high on purpose for them

Comical to watch, jumping up to put their tongue right where

The milk shot in a straight stream from the cow’s teat

You don’t see that anymore, everything high tech and encased

There was a freedom in that old barn, boards worn and creaking

And I knew every step and crack and seam, loved the soft rain

On the tin roof, making a music all its own… like no other.

Just a dream now, but still so strong.  An impenetrable feeling

Images strung along my farm girl life… the moist breathe of a cow

Sniffing your face and trying to lick your hair into its mouth

Patting the wee calves and bottle feeding some whose mother

Hadn’t enough milk or had passed on to another realm of life

The sadness at a time of death was overwhelming and too much

For a little girl’s heart.  Each loss was a deep pain that left scars.

So now here I am, a scarred old lady in so many ways I can’t count

Too much hurt can just get bottled up, ya know?  Too much jumble

And now we have to sift out all the silly, take the grain from the chaff

And leave behind only the good parts, because the sully got healed.

I pray for enough time on this earth to get that tarnish all out

To heal the sad memories and redo past wrongs, so that

Everyone left behind can move on without the dust, free as they can be.

Because one day they will be getting old too, grey hairs and slow steps

And they will look back and know they have to do the job that is left

Sift out all that silly, and leave the golden sun and rainbows behind.

cailin raine