Grandmother

By Estelle Webb Thomas

She couldn’t make a poem, so she moved like one, instead,
And there was rippling music in the simplest thing she said;
She couldn’t paint a picture, but a picture she could be
By means of soap and water and some home-made finery.
She never earned a penny, but the ones she tried to save
Would have paved a shining highway from her cradle to her grave;
Yes, tried to save but couldn’t, since to her open door
Came those whose need was greater far than all her tiny store.
The boundaries of her narrow sphere were clearly marked by duty,
But on life’s highways, far and wide, went those she’d touched with beauty;
And how surprised she’d be to know – dispensing heavenly cheer –
How many tapers that she lit burn to her memory here!

(1941)