Thickening the Stew

Her eighty-three years were tired,
and I had to crawl up beside her
if I wanted to hear her voice
too soft to hear at the side of the bed.

She lay with her hands clutching
the blanket close to her chin,
smiling as she rambles of days
children like me have never seen.

A farm wife, she reminds me,
knows the length of the furrows
as well as her husband.
She can look at the sky knowingly
getting the animals safe into the barn.

Her fingers tap the blanket
counting again the sixty-three jars
of beans she canned that year.
Laughing with the memory
of the potatoes cooked too long,
then only good for thickening stew.

I heard of running chickens,
burnt pie crusts,
and her sweet children
playing in the wheat fields
till the reaper came.