THE STREAM-Chapter I-Part One

In 1985 I began a book for our daughter Mary called THE STREAM.  For each of three years I created with calligraphy & illustration an independent segment (narrative poem) in the life of "Beth" a young girl who leaves the city with her parents to live in the Montana, Missouri Breaks. Each Christmas, wife/mother Elcye sewed by hand the new segment into the hard-cover book.

Mary's daughter Lauren is about the age now that Mary was when I wrote this. Because of the length of the first segment I will break it up into parts.

THE STREAM

Once upon a time

  The mailman brought a catalogue

from a large city department store

all the way to a lonely little girl

living in the Missouri breaks

  of Montana.

She was ten

  without a friend

Their home where the spring boils forth.

It joins a stream where the grass is green

  winding the canyon floor.

Yes, she could see

  down through the trees

there lay another world,

But not the one they had moved from, no,

  Beth was a city girl.

And the catalogue

  brought down-town

to this lonely girl out west.

Oh how she loved the clothes!

- loved the toys!

But loved a necklace best,

  a"diamond" necklace, yes!

"Oh Father in Heaven", she would ask

  at night, upon her bed,

after she had prayed for Mom and Dad and all

and told Him in her sweetest way

  her love for Him was pure.

"I don't really need it - but if you

  possibly could -."

And daily she met the mailman

  cause her's was a "God that could"!

And though it took through August

she still thought He "might" could.

Well, perhaps the pretty necklace

wasn't important after all.

She really didn't need it -

  after all.

And she put away the necklace

when she put away the book.

Only opened it "once"

to take "one" final look.

Chapter I Part two http://writing.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981719382