What we see in childhood

Little black notebook is waiting her prayer,

murmured and spoken her Saviour to hear;

words penned to page with the ladies to share,

the gospels, the psalms that she held so dear.

Her mother took boarders, two bits a night.

Young man saw motion with such airy grace,

her voice full of song and laughter and light.

He met with her mother, argued his case.

She bore him five children, including a son;

He sheltered and loved her his whole life long.

Puzzled  that he thought of her as the one,

She nonetheless loved him; he was her song.

       Now in her winter, I sit by her feet,

       watching her write in her notebook so neat.

This poem (a sonnet!) is submitted to the One Word Blog Carnival on “childhood,” hosted by Peter Pollock. To see other poems, please visit Peter’s site. The links will be live at 10 p.m. Central time.

This poem is also submitted to TweetSpeak Poetry’s prompt to write a sonnet based on personal history. My poem is about my paternal grandparents. If you’re on Facebook, you can see the prompt at the T.S. Press page. If you want to get really involved, you can check the photo play prompt from a recent High Calling post, which includes photography and a sonnet (I’m photography-impaired, so I just did a poem).