spoonful

LUCINDA MATLOCK

I went to the dances
at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out
at Winchester.
One time we
changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for
seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,

Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached
the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house,
I nursed the sick,
I made the garden,
and for holiday
Rambled over the fields
where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and
medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?

Degenerate sons
and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.

Edgar Lee Masters