Where I Learned the Word Woman
Generations Poetry | One
Note to reader: best read on a computer
Here is where I learned the word woman: at the elbow of Lela May, all white hair and spitfires, shucking corn in the summer kitchen pinned under the sweaty arm of August. The littles are outside with the fear of God and mom inside them, combing cobs for worms for a nickel a piece, while the women do the real work. This year I am a woman too, fresh faced jewel in the dragon smog of the kitchen whispered the spell of freezing corn. Rub the silk from the gold baptize it in the gurgling pot chill it with the ice block till the kernels are soft in your hands. I am told more will be given away than kept and thank goodness we aren't canning tomatoes in this heat. Here is where I learned the word woman: dirt underneath Lela May's short fingernails, pruning, picking, pulling the produce from the soil first in her own garden and then in her sister's too. Sun inside her smile, flowers in her fingers. Demeter with a wide brimmed hat and gloves. She brings us zucchinis when mom forgets to plant them. She brings us jack-be-little pumpkins for my sister to paint them. I never see her without an apron unless it's a Sunday. She tells me it's okay to simply till the ground instead of trying to shake it. Here is where I learned the word woman: in the pew next to Lela May and the rev Dan. The Holy Word of God open to fit her hands underlined and beloved and used. Tamer of flesh, my nannie, the first example of a gentle and quiet spirit (and not a pushover) — oh Jesus! You gave that woman a backbone, a spine—contrary, willful—Speak, woman, speak! She buys her daughters new basketball shoes each gray washed November. (When she was my age, Iowa girls couldn't play sports) Her voice rings in every VCR tape of the Watermelon Valley high school gym: "shoot the ball, Marcy!" Here is where I learned the word woman: Served by Lela May sitting at her table clothed in fresh linens and paper plates and sloppy joes. Noticing the grooves in her, like a worn wooden floor, tired and tried and true and all that is good and found in the Iowa countryside. If she is not here, at this table, she is working— the last one to rest, to cease, to eat. Get your elbows off the table, child. She has familiar wandering hands, watering cans and cleaning product. She walks like her dad, Grandpa Willie. She cares for her mom who cannot remember her name. Her knees are calloused from praying. Dear Jesus, Thy will be done. I learned the word woman watching her.
