Plain Poetry from a Plain Country Woman

by Blanche Day Manos

Don’t tell me they are gone, for I can see them still

The house, the spring, the burr oak tree, the barn beneath the hill.

I smell the sausage sizzling, I hear the rooster crow,

The sounds and scents of each new day that woke me long ago.

I feel the warmth and welcome that chased away the cold

As we listened, round the fireplace, to stories Pappy told.

Those happy days of childhood will never know an end.

I’ll keep them tucked within my heart, my years at Etta Bend.

Cover art by Carolyn Cochran Karinen

The Healing Woods

by Blanche Day Manos

Long, long ago in the forest, in quiet and shadowy hills,

The Cherokee used roots and berries and leaves to cure their ills.

There was blackberry tea for the stomach, and yellow dock for a cut toe,

Sumac would soothe poison ivy, and wild rose would make toothaches go.

With ginger that grew in the woodlands, and mint, with its sharp, pleasant smell,

Buckbrush and yarrow, called squirrel’s tail were used in making folk well.

Now the knowledge is all but forgotten, the secrets are blown in the breeze.

But the plants, with their powers of healing, were known by the wise Cherokees.

Cover art by Carolyn Cochran Karinen

A Cricket’s Lullaby

by Blanche Day Manos

As the fireplace flickers low and logs are reddish ember-glow,

A simple solo, drowsy-slow, hesitantly creeping.

A nightly nocturne he’ll begin, his fiddle tucked beneath his chin,

A tinny tune that’s rusty-thin, played as the world is sleeping.