Merely 5 foot 4 - Get Your Poem On #117

Were you only 5 foot 7?

I hear the swish of your mink

It seemed to come from so high

So far above my 4 foot 8 frame

 

My eyes must have measured in

at 4 foot 4 or so: blue, wide, unblinking

Did Mom tell you I hid in the closet

To escape school and their taunting?

 

Your special pillowcase kept your

weekly silver coif in place, just so

I listened until the coast was clear,

Sunlight leaking onto cedar

 

Were you sad like me?

Your doctor said it was malaise

which made you leave so swiftly

Did you feel someone sneer at your

 

Grand attempt to learn to play

The organ, central in the condo

Did you seek, like me, to be

Separate from the silent eye critique?

 

Was being alone too hard?

 

I wish I had been brave enough

to talk to you like this then

Before I grew to merely 5'4

I wish I knew underneath the mink

= = =

This prompt is courtesy of....

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Comments

[Cynthia Short]

Julie, this is so heartfelt and makes me ache with my own remembrances of those taunting "mean kids".
Also, the yearning in the piece, to know your grandmother, and for yourself to be somehow "larger" like this woman was an extra and beautiful touch.

[Anthony North]

I remember taunting kids. I was - am - small, too - only 5 foot 4. Humour seemed to be my way out. I guess that's why I'm a short story writer.

[pamela]

Julie,
What a lovely tribute to your grandmother. Thanks for sharing your words with us.
Pamela

[irene]

This brings back a forgotten memory of a taunting monster for me.

[Uma Gowrishankar]

It's a beautiful poem of a lost childhood. The child cowering from a bullying and harsh world and the old woman reclusive in old age is said poignantly in the poem.

[Karen]

Your poem takes us there - inside the closet, inside the condo, seeing 4'4 and childhood's eyes. This one makes me really feel.

[Joseph Harker]

The memory, although it might be a tough one, is a really sweet one. (I wonder what my own grandmother would have done had she discovered me.) It's also touching how you drew the connection between the two of you.

[Neil Reid]

Touching and genuine Julie. Thank you for sharing this moment of both childhood and now. Seems a right-of-passage so often doesn't it? And the greatest costs aren't necessarily the most obvious.

(And also why my cowboy-self-image remains in mind.)
Thanks.

[gautami tripathy]

As a teacher, I do understand the fears of a child. Thanks for writing this...

my arms around myself won't let me down

[Therese Broderick]

I agree with all praise above. This poem is so honest in its regrets and wounds, eliciting the reader's empathy. I love the several questions, which add to the pathos of the poem, since they won't be answered. There's a deep truth to the fact that sometimes children connect more intimately to grandmothers than to mothers. (I've sometimes wondered whether I write short poems because I'm only 5 feet 1 inch tall.)