Third Generation Daughter Poem by Mary Wright

We spent time with Nanny
At that old ranch house
On Sacramento Street;
A moderate little home
Easing just off the curb.

I remember her in the kitchen
Slicing chicken in a
Seasoned cast iron.
She cooked it crispy
In biscuit flower and lard, and
Prepared a feast of sweet corn
And fried okra they could smell
Miles from the dusty lanes
from where she had come.

When I was a little girl
My daddy told us stories
About When the wind blew families
Toward the western skies,
And folks were set apart by
Dirty soil and tangled dreams.

Daddy said they live once under a weeping tree.
That was back when they quenched
Their thirst with Nanny's sweet tea
And eased their grief with California promises.
Those days were Epochs for novels;
Inheritance of reform for my daddy
Who worked from the wane of the moon
Till the glare of the sun themed
The earth around his neck
And the oil under his nails
Gave impetus to change.

Daddy never made it past the sixth grade
When book learning wasn't thought enough
To put food in the stomach and hope in the heart
But he taught his children about those
That danced with the Jacks in the fields
And washed their sweaty brows
Down by the willow creeks
Daddy recognized the changes

Me, I was born a third generation daughter
Never knowing what my nanny had endured;
She served peach cobbler with avowal
And picked those peaches herself
And canned them to preserve

Now, here I am searching for that old ranch house
That has long faded into the twenty-first century
As has my daddy and most of the relatives
And I recognize the changes