My Great Grandmother. Poem by Douglas McClarty

The plot was half an acre
That was her world her home
Never ventured far from here
No need her life was all there
Mother hen, mother goose
She was all of them
Thirteen bairns washed
clothed, fed and scrubbed.
Until they left the half acre
one by one gone to places
She would never want to know.
Some returned now and then
bairns to feast on her griddle
Soda's, scones, jam and tea and
buttermilk from the half acre cow.
Visits got scarce as the years past
As each of her bairns passed away
Some in far away places, others
beneath foreign clay.
Yet she never left that half acre
And now one hundred years gone by
she lies alone with fading memories
sheds a tear and gently falls asleep.