Poetry: Dee Allen

Dee Allen

GRANNY OAK

As a boy,

I was raised

By 3 maternal elders:

Grandma Lillie,

Granny Lucy

And Granny Oak.

Although she never dispensed

Treats to us kids

Like the other 2 did,

Granny Oak

Always held down

The front lawn of Grandma Lillie's house'

Near what my

Little brother Mike called

“The gumball trees”.

Granny Lucy

Kept the inner house

Running smoothly, even from her wheelchair.

She was the stern

Disciplinarian among my

Female elders, despite partial paralysis.

Whenever one kid stepped out of line,

Granny Lucy would order another,

Usually the kid that wasn't in trouble,

And tell them:

Boy! Git outside

An' cut me a switch!

Granny Oak

Never gave up

Any fruit or nuts,

But she damn sure 

Supplied Granny Lucy with

Enough whip-like switches to beat us with!

Those whuppings

Kept me on the straight-and-narrow.

Until 10th Grade. The start of my “Metal Years”.

***

GRANNY OAK 2

As a man

In my 20s

Living out “The Punk Years”,

Grandma Lillie

Had Granny Oak

Evicted from our family's land.

Granny Oak

Did something Grandma Lillie

Didn't like—and she couldn't help it:

A thunderstorm,

One of the fiercest, caused

Granny Oak to snap

A gigantic branch.

All that torrential rain and wind

Went well into dusk, sent that branch

Landing on the roof of

Grandma Lillie's house.

If that broken limb of wood were

Heavier,

The inner ceiling would've collapsed.

And this tale would never be told.

Next day,

Grandma Lillie

Telephoned for someone to escort

Granny Oak

From the front lawn.

It wasn't a team of sheriff's deputies.

Tree surgeons 

Drove their chainsaws

Into the big oak tree that served as

Granny Lucy's

Partner in child

Discipline when I was younger.

A clean-cut

Stump, a layer 

Of sawdust, leaves and twigs

Were all

That remained of

Another family maternal elder, gone from our midst.

***

ORCHARD 3

There was much more

To Grandma Lillie's backyard

Than the 3 or 4 peachtrees

Standing at attention.

For starters,

The sad little 

Weather-beaten,

Peeling-paint tool shed

Seemed to collapse with each

Passing season and storm,

But it never

Lacked company

Like the ophidian grapevine

That slithered along the side of the tool shed

Doing its tumble down number in slow motion.

It yielded purple grapes in Spring, though;

The blackberry bush

That grew against a neighbour's chainlink

Fence behind our time-worn shed. I bet

Those blackberries were sweeter than the grapes;

[ Razor-sharp thorns made picking them a challenge ]

The pear tree

And the apple tree,

Though I'm partial to apples than pears,

Which had blandness you could tell from one chomp.

The peachtrees' mature, juice-laden bounty

Went through the routine seasonal

Cycle of drop-soften-rot, attracted

Wasps by the swarm onto

Felled blond fruit

Prior to decomposition—

Those stinger insects

Loved the taste of peaches, too.

[ Explains why nobody gathered them up ]

But it was like that

In Grandma Lillie's

Self-contained orchard

In her backyard.

***

Dee Allen: African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California U.S.A. Active on creative

writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 7 books—Boneyard, Unwritten

Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black [ all from POOR Press ], Elohi Unitsi [ Conviction 2

Change Publishing ] and his 2 newest, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate [

Vagabond Books ] and Plans [ Nomadic Press ]—and 50 anthology appearances under

his figurative belt so far.

Email: deeallen415@gmail.com  

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Setu, June 2022