THE PORCH CHARMER

Folder:

JOURNAL # 41

with his black hat tilted
politely thus so
his eyes veiled kind
and how he would so carefully
lean as if though
comfort and security were his
esteemed middle names
Grandma called him
'The Porch Charmer'
so dignified
a genteel southern dream
yet ever always the courteous host
she offered him oatmeal cookies
and fresh lemonade
some afternoons he would accept
others he would gently decline
but he loved to talk
and talk he did
why I'd stop playing just to listen to him
how he so easily enchanted an elderly
woman and her mesmerized youngest
grandchild with tales of adventure
that overlapped each other yet almost
bordered on the near divine
the heat of Africa he so lavishly revealed
as well as tales of Chinese tailors
seeking through his particular acquaintance
the true gospels and their righteous appeal
to the savages in the Amazon sharing their
strange food and livelihood's trade with him
he knew the seven wanders of the world
personally
he even spoke of visiting them
like one would an old dear friend
'twas glorious to sit in his presence
to think a man of his caliber and
life situation sitting there as if he
belonged
on a scarred, little old creaking
wooden porch swing
on East 12th Street
visiting with my countrified grandma
and me
'twas surreal bordering on that of
the sublime
summer time afternoons of early
days gone past
and so truly 70s life like and serene
as innocent a tale as Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain could have done our
porch charmer proud
with his spoken words
our dear porch charmer made
mysteries dissolve right before us
in our very laps
then I noticed he stopped coming
to sit with us for a visit
and all grandma would say was
she heard that some nice uniformed
soldier had come down to the church
for him and hauntingly played taps
I never understood just what she
meant for nearly a dozen years
after that
but when I learned about military
funerals I cried
and imagined my grandma when I was
twelve going up to heaven herself
and likely meeting up again
with our oh so missed porch charmer...........
(Jan. 21, 2015 12pm)