Googling Mom

I googled my mom today. She is, among other things, a poet. She reads regularly at Central Valley venues and belongs to a group called the Licensed Fools. She's been published in several literary newspapers and a few academic anthologies. Here is a poem she wrote about a wonderful lady whom I'd almost forgotten. Bobbie Watson was the wife of a colleague of my father's at the telephone company, Mr. Ernie Watson. They had a ranch outside Salinas somewhere. As children, it seemed like a wonderful fantasy land. Gardens and ponds (which my sister fell into and I pulled her out of in my one act of childhood heroism) frogs, snakes, a greenhouse room which always smelled damp but lovely. She really did have pastel paintings of her children on the walls, in little oval frames. She was a dear lady, with a sweet laugh and a high-pitched voice. Reading this poem (for the first time) was a nice little reminder of an idyllic time and place.

SHE WAS GRACIOUS
by Sheila D. Landre

Bobbie Watson, she was gracious,
the way she wore her garden hat
among the bearded iris,
every color, row on row,
bending to her gloved caress.
She would smile and talk
to violets by the doorstep and
make sure the cats each
had a sunny spot to nap.

Bobbie Watson, she was gracious,
the way she sat so regally
in an antique chair
in her handmade house,
pastel portraits of her children
on the wall. She paid such
close attention, asked such
thoughtful questions,
listened.

Bobbie Watson, she was gracious,
the way she comforted and
held me in her warm embrace
the day of Ernie's funeral
--How suddenly he'd died!--
but she was strength and
she was grace and she knew
where life was going,
where it came from,
how to live it.

Bobbie Watson, she was gracious,
in some fine immortal way
that makes me want to drive
up into the shady hills,
drift along the leafy curves
and down the pebble driveway,
to look across the old stone wall
and see her in her garden hat
kneeling there among the iris.