On a crisp November morning
A touch of winter filled the air
With scents and sounds from yesteryear
That made me wish I was still there
In a poor, Kentucky kitchen
When Mother and Lena were there
And we hurriedly cooked the breakfast
With nary a minute to spare
Seven children with big appetites
Had to eat before going to school
It took a lot to fill the table
With biscuits and gravy as a rule
Fried eggs and grease-soaked bacon
Adorned Mother's old, chipped platter
Her big, blue gravy bowl held a gallon
And the boon spean* parsed out the latter
Some mornings, Mother made pancakes
From commodity flour she had
And boiled a big, hot kettle of homemade syrup
From sugared water that wasn't half bad
Familiar smells wafting through the house
Brought the others into the kitchen
We always depended on Mother
For a breakfast with all the fixings
But, some meals in that Appalachian home
Were meager and too often sparse
More than once, we went to school hungry
A miner's pay could only stretch so far
Those hard-rock times in Kentucky
Helped me appreciate what I have now
By not taking things for granted
They made me stronger, somehow
In my soul, there is still a yearning
To linger in that long ago
But my mind knows what my heart won't hear
And all my wishing can't make it so
Kathleen McCoy Eldridge
© June 26, 2017
All Rights Reserved
* This was Cheryl's pet name for the bean spoon.
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