RSS 2.0 FeedThelma
I'm glad you called.
I've been thinking of you.
I still miss your mother so.
I sent you a jar of figs on Thursday --
my tree did good this year.
I got your card from Hawaii --
sounded like a nice trip.
Did you make some money, too?
My yard looks pretty good this year.
The man who cuts my grass
said to me, "You've got
good garden ground back there."
He planted bunch string beans for me,
Those Kentucky Wonders came up pretty,
but a rabbit ate them all.
My neighbor gave me okra plants
and put them in for me.
They were growing good,
but then the rabbit ate them too.
I can't be worried, though:
that rabbit looked like he was starving.
He needed those beans and okra
more than me.
The only place I go now
is to church and the doctor,
but I've got lots of friends,
am blessed at ninety-two,
still able to get up,
fix breakfast,
wash the dishes,
take my shower.
An Indian doctor in Greenville
cured my stomach ulcer. I'm fine,
just too weak to walk as much
because of my heart,
I have to stay out of the heat.
Every day it's a nice surprise
to find myself still here.
Patsy Thrash, a retired higher education executive, has enjoyed trying to use words in a more creative way through Northwestern's OLLI program, where she coordinates a study group called Writing for Pleasure and Discovery. She writes on her MacBook Pro in a room of her own with a screen door latched to keep out curious cats. Her creative nonfiction, poems and memoirs, she likes to think, are "straightforward observations that often reflect what I heard and saw growing up in Mississippi, a place which honors legendary writers such as Eudora Welty and William Faulkner and is hailed as the home of the Blues."