Once Upon My Time: My Taste of Place

By Jane Cocke Perdue

This collection of poems begins at the beginning of life and includes reflections and observations of childhood and adulthood, including the joyful as well as the painful aspects of being a human being. In other words, it chronicles years for which I am very grateful as I am approaching my mid-eighties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546251088

Jane Cocke Perdue

Jane Cocke Perdue is a native of Asheville, North Carolina, but she has lived in many areas of the country as the spouse of a Presbyterian minister. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, retired high school teacher and writer. Previous collections of her poetry are entitled: Bones of My Garden, Stones of Help: My Ebenezers, and Paradise to Pentecost and Beyond. Her poetry has also been published in The San Antonio Express, The Williamson County Sun and a variety of Texas anthologies, including The Texas Poetry Calendar, Blue Hole, The Enigmatist, Inkwell Echoes, Voices along the River and Hill Country Poets.

Book preview

SECTION I

Whistling Home

Water of life

                            Rhythmic rocking in amniotic fluid

                            until slow, leaking water

                            seeps through the birth canal

                            preparing for delivery

                            like a wet carpet laid

                            before the entrance to a world

                            filled with dread and delight.

                            A mother’s gasps and groans

                            discordant background music

                            for sliding into neonatal

                            bright light splendor.

                            The first anointing ritual–

                            symbol of new life and cleansing–

                            a bathing in clear, pure water

                            gently rinsing away

                            stifling newborn mucous

                            leaving paper thin baby skin

                            red-warm and dry–

                            life-saving

                            liquid grace.

Terroir: My Taste of Place

                                My terroir is near blue ridges

                                far smoky mountains

                                spring rhododendron

                                exploding in pink profusion

                                autumn yellow-gold and red

                                spilling between evergreens

                                like sun and blood

                                fresh mountain streams

                                laughing down hillsides

                                cold white comforter

                                blanketing dormancy

                                waiting spring eruption

                                My terroir is strong lean arms

                                splitting wood for burning

                                honey bees spelunking

                                for nectar in wildness

                                shadow-frightened rabbits

                                possums playing dead

                                so to be alive

                                squirrels acorn-hoarding

                                for delayed digestion

                                raccoons waiting for dark

                                to raid debris

                                vultures circling fresh death

                                My terroir is apple crispness

                                sourwood sweet honey

                                barn-fertile fumes

                                mixed with mother-milk

                                flavored outdoor childhood

                                woodland walks in shadow

                                snowball fights, sledding

                                teachers with neck-chained glasses

                                lugging canvas totes

                                My terroir is fierce loyalty

                                for forebears honed on hardship

                                and unnamed dread

                                leaving hard-rock fields at dusk –

                                bone tired –

                                for promise of biscuits, beans and cabbage

                                and fiddle music on the porches

                                of hand-built cabins

                                leaning into hillsides

                                My terroir embraces

                                sweet mountain music

                                sour early plums

                                shriveling the tongue

                                proud bitter scarcity

                                salt-of-the earth people

                                and a savory taste

                                of time well-seasoned

                                preserved in prayers

                                of thanksgiving

                                for the lesson of history

                                and the taste of place.

Threads

                         Her birth was premature –

                         One or two centuries

                         Before her time.

                         My grandmother buffeted

                         Her hard life with books,

                         Detesting cleaning

                         And cooking although tradition

                         Dictated she do both.

                         She stacked Harpers on New Yorkers

                         On Atlatntic Monthly issues

                         Past and current.

                         Her dark, cluttered house

                         Burst with classic volumes

                         Greek and Latin–

                         Homer, Virgil, Ovid

                         Which she read without hesitation

                         Needing no translation.

                         Her wifely duties were

                         Obligations to cook, clean,

                         Serve, wash, darn

                         Making sure to please.

                         She called my grandfather Daddy.

                         He called her Mrs. Pettus.

                         No first-name basis.

                         He demanded in the raspy whisper

                         Of a throat-cancer survivor

                         And she responded with

                         Water, pills, tobacco, matches,

                         Toothpicks, mail and newspapers.

                         His call bell sounded frequently

                         To summon her service.

                         She cooked his meals

                         And washed and starched

                         And ironed his shirts,

                         But her loyalty and love

                         Was literature which fed her

                         As week-old jello

                         Molded in the icebox

                         And dust bunnies gathered