Homework WE 26/4/21 - Just a Poor Old Maid
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 2:22 pm
Maureen, I love the way you come up with these challenging and intriguing prompts every month! I don't know about degree of difficulty - it just seems to me that once they trigger a train of thought, there's no stopping it! I'm not sure how and why they lead me where they do - but perhaps that's a good thing!
JUST A POOR OLD MAID
(c) Shelley Hansen 10-4-21
I jumped to wrong conclusions when I first met Miss Kincaid.
The people of the town had said, “She’s just a poor old maid,
a girl who never married, who has spent her life alone.”
I thought, perhaps, that she’d been spared the heartaches I had known.
She always wore a sunny smile, and never seemed to sigh.
Her flower garden welcomed each admiring passer-by.
Her hens supplied the district and the produce from her stall
graced meat and three veg dinners that were fed to one and all.
I thought of how she must have lived – footloose and fancy free,
untroubled by a husband or the cares of family –
until one special moment on a suitably fine day
I took the time to visit when I chanced to pass her way.
She told me of the man she’d loved when in the bloom of youth.
She’d listened to his promises, believed he spoke the truth.
“He’d charm the skin right off a snake,” she wistfully remarked,
“and didn’t see the blind devotion that his words had sparked.”
“I dreamed of ‘ever after’ and he promised me a ring.
Some townsfolk tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t hear a thing
against him, as I made my plans to wed and settle down –
until I learned he had a girl in almost every town!”
Her heart of gold was broken, shattered quite beyond repair.
She never found another man whose journey she could share.
She nursed her ageing parents till the day they passed away,
then helped her neighbours, as she watched herself grow old and grey.
They called her “just a poor old maid”. It made me realise
how life is so much more than what’s apparent to the eyes.
Events that could have made her bitter, made her kind instead.
As songbirds trilled with joy, a mournful crow cawed overhead.
JUST A POOR OLD MAID
(c) Shelley Hansen 10-4-21
I jumped to wrong conclusions when I first met Miss Kincaid.
The people of the town had said, “She’s just a poor old maid,
a girl who never married, who has spent her life alone.”
I thought, perhaps, that she’d been spared the heartaches I had known.
She always wore a sunny smile, and never seemed to sigh.
Her flower garden welcomed each admiring passer-by.
Her hens supplied the district and the produce from her stall
graced meat and three veg dinners that were fed to one and all.
I thought of how she must have lived – footloose and fancy free,
untroubled by a husband or the cares of family –
until one special moment on a suitably fine day
I took the time to visit when I chanced to pass her way.
She told me of the man she’d loved when in the bloom of youth.
She’d listened to his promises, believed he spoke the truth.
“He’d charm the skin right off a snake,” she wistfully remarked,
“and didn’t see the blind devotion that his words had sparked.”
“I dreamed of ‘ever after’ and he promised me a ring.
Some townsfolk tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t hear a thing
against him, as I made my plans to wed and settle down –
until I learned he had a girl in almost every town!”
Her heart of gold was broken, shattered quite beyond repair.
She never found another man whose journey she could share.
She nursed her ageing parents till the day they passed away,
then helped her neighbours, as she watched herself grow old and grey.
They called her “just a poor old maid”. It made me realise
how life is so much more than what’s apparent to the eyes.
Events that could have made her bitter, made her kind instead.
As songbirds trilled with joy, a mournful crow cawed overhead.