Uncle Ben

My father came from a farming family, and I remember summers spent in the country with two uncles and an aunt, siblings all, still working the land. Of the three of them, Ben left the biggest impression.



Uncle Ben


A wide-mouthed jar brimful
with change, and sitting out
in the open on his dresser
proved to me at age eight
what a wealthy man he must be.
I paid scant notice to his worn
overalls and the back-firing tractor.

He taught me my first salty words,
how to milk a cow without getting kicked,
that Kool-Aid without sugar was only
colored well-water and just as bitter,
exactly the way he liked it.

I acted as his co-pilot when we drove
to town. He surveyed the crops
while I watched the road, gravel pinging
all the way to O'Toole's Bar. A beer
and a bump for him and without asking
always a mouth puckering Squirt for me.

He cursed the noon market reports,
swatting at the airwaves with his thick,
calloused hand, thought it a joke
to toss my straw hat into the hay baler,
and bluffed strangers with his gruffness.

More grizzly than teddy bear, he once
let me hide in his arms during a hailstorm,
and I think I saw him smile.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor