Bluebell

Bluebell, 1914

He was five,

and the journey longer than a day

to the new world,

joggling in the back of a wood wagon.

The floors were dirt.

The windows, oiled paper.

The boys slept on the porch,

the four of them, and a dog

his mother would shoo off the bed ~~

but only for the time of her staying.

He loved it there.

Perhaps because, for once,

his mother, a mountain girl from Norway,

was happy there, in all the green,

and with her garden. . . .

(the story, found among my father's papers,

after my mother's death)