The Sweetness of Vinegar
credit to:The Vinegar Man by Ruth Comfort Mitchell
Thank you Miss Collins, my poetry muse,
your old legs bowed, with fist
pounding out each poem’s rhythm upon your brittle hip.
making us stand, alone, to recite from memory
Vinegar, vinegar, vinegar man,
face us and chase us and catch if you can
my seventh grade mind impervious to death’s approach or loss of true love
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Annabel Lee and The Raven, all
etched into my memory forever.
We were your children and poetry your gift to us.
Long live the balladeer, the seed you planted within me.
I humbly thank you venerable teacher of words.
Such a touching remembrance of school days, of learning though too young to know the future pain of loss. Love the mentions, and though I was not fmiliar with the vinegar man, your title caught my attention right off.
Well done!
thank you, It was perhaps a bit obscure, sad poem/tale of the lonely solitary man, children mocked and when he died they found his cherished valentine torn in half -“he pickled his heart in a valentine”
The Vinegar Man by Ruth Comfort Mitchell