Town Poem by Martha J. Eshelman

Town is where widowed grandmas live
near Finnish Lutheran churches
lighted by stained-glass oil lamps -
cherished reliques of the homeland.

Where fathers selling dry-land hay
have trucks weighed at the gas station
by the childlesss postmistress.
You needn't call; she lives in back.

Where the abandoned KC hall
was storage for the beekeeper's
empty comb frames and stacked white hives
but his house burned and he moved on.

Where election night means potluck
at the Grange hall. Parents visit
while children in secret closets
eavesdropp oon the ballot counting.

Where school holds three grades to a room.
School omens bode well if you sit
where Dad has carved his initials
in the wood desk with its inkwell.

Where five family generations,
intermarrying two homelands,
root deep in the hardpan clay soil
and you're known by your place, not name.