Fiction Friday: Limberjack

Limberjacks from Prairie Wind Toy Co.

For Fiction Flashback Friday, I'm sharing a poem that I've been kicking around a while. I grew up around some clever bluegrass musicians, including my lovely Aunt Lerlie, who would sing and provide percussion to their songs with a Limberjack doll.

I've been thinking a lot about those days with our Papa's family, mostly about how I thought they would never end.

So this little poem is about lost childhood and a generation that is slowly slipping away. Even so, we won't forget what they've given us.

This poem is for Aunt Lerlie.

Limberjack

Never again

Will the little wooden man

Dance as he did

Like he danced with you

And never again

Will his jitterbug limbs

Spin as they did

When he spun with you

In our childhood dreams

of watermelon teeth

and sweet gum trees,

He jigs and he jumps

To your knuckle-bump thumps

On the pine wood plank

where he danced

But never again

Will he swing and sway

As he did back then

In those huckleberry days

None of us learned

How to play the spoons

And the cuckoo clock springs

Have sprung too soon

And never again

Will they rewind

While the limberjack man

Lies on his side