If I were asked…to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people (the Americans) ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.

Alex de Tocqueville.

I am the son of Titan women,

Born of water and of blood;

Born of Heaven’s will

and of the burning sod.

 

I am born of Terra

and of Sarah too,

a son of Adam, and

our “Father” Abraham, included

in the loins of faith.

 

I am the son

of strong STRONG women

and the sire of the same,

I have tasted fire,

and added to flame

of life.

 

Trace me back

and you will find

Irish maids and Cornish Lords,

scallywags and dumblewits,

pagans, saints, and tumbled hordes

mighty pillars, bloody swords,

and …a fire that burns back

to Eve.

 

--

I begin with Nana

not direct in Flesh and Blood

but sister in this ever branching tree,

and mother to the mother of my bride.

You were cut from stalwart cloth

and married to a man, who would cut

two continents apart,

and splice separated waters through

the Panama canal.

 

You bore humidity and insects

and the greater ravage of a man

who didn’t keep “one” home.

But through it all maintained

the strength that goes with inner dignity

and letting God consume the past.

 

You knew we disagreed

about some very basic things of faith,

(and science);

You held to a world, where pain

was but illusion. You shunned the world

of medicine (but lived long in you shunning)

even as you braced to bear “imaginary” pain.

 

But when it came to a life

lived in the spirit of Christian forgiveness

returning good for harm,

I honor your glory.

 

--

Then there is the Ami (Ahmee)

matron Saint of a small army,

Irish blood and New York bread.

You spoke in brogue and fingered Rosaries

even as the honor tumbled daily from your mouth

like a beautiful dripping faucet.

 

“Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God,” you said,

then

Startled the world with your maverick sayings:

I’d say “So”

You’d snap back: “Sew buttons on your underwear”

I’d say, “Sure, go ahead”

You’d reply, “Are you ready for Freddie – He’s the undertaker.”

 

As it is, you gave life to three -- titan women all

with the middlest my Mom;

They returned the favor

Catholic style, eighteen grandkids,

followed by so many more.

Oh, what memories I hold … the house, the smells,

the elegant clocks and beautiful glass -

Your hands tracing fragile cups or You, under the diving-bell curlers

and drinking coffee in high backed chairs…

Wild berries underneath the stairs,

Jesus standing with on the mantel with the open heart

and the painting in the basement (that I snuck off to see)

of Lilly-white women bathing in the lake.

 

You held on so long, so STRONG, after Delbert

your hansom, polio limping, hard working, depression schooled,

coin collecting, Protestant chauffer

of a husband left this world,

and now we feel your absence

like a hole in the world.

 

like love gone away.

 

Next I turn to two that I knew less,

One I never met, and one whom I regret to say

that I lost contact with through adolescent inwardness

and the fray of severed families.

 

Edith… Mother of the Father of my bride

I understand that you were quite the saint,

and Mother of the five McGinns;

Brothers who would score their marks

as teachers, farmers, warriors, and business men;

They wore the suits of several wars

and climbed ever so far in their own private citadels.

 

I never met you but I see your mark

in the vigor of the men you left behind,

Men who love their country

and their faith.

 

-----

Grace … Mother of my dad

and conduit for so much now that gives me life.

You were a woman of the earth. A shepherd,

and a Methodist; our first Republican,

respectable and Oh, so graceful

in your pearls and lean muscled frame.

 

I understand that you wore pants before the time

even as you worked to tame a wild land. And what a land it was.

accessible by riverboat and mule, but never car –

You portaged up the Snake

to my name’s sake – the Kirkwood ranch.

 

Would it be that I owe growing love of pen to you?

 

I see your books upon my shelf:

Home below Hells Canyon

Canyon Boy

Idaho Reader.

 

Later you would climb with Len

with hard work and integrity

to places fitting to your quiet strength:

wife of US senator -- First Lady of the state.

 

Now the River surges ever closer:

Jean Mc Mom – Mother of my bride

I hold no blood of yours, but tangled with it daily,

even as I see your mark

upon our children, and my Bride.

 

You look like a titan woman

so I hope you will not balk,

When I say, that with your Jeffersonian coif,

chiseled form

and resolute stride,

You could fit by Jefferson among the rocks,

granite eyes looking out across Black Hills.

 

We know

that you span worlds.

architect and boss, stellar graduate of Rice,

beauty queen of Panama and

married to the man who SWAM the thing --

former atheist, and now

Sunday school teacher at the Thomas Road Baptist Church.

 

I won’t tell’m that you dance

a mean Charleston, or that

you once met Charles at the door

with loaded gun.

Sure he was a pilot and an officer,

in a hellish war … but no letters or phone calls

for five months

and five kids in six years, left you frazzled.

 

You know, that we call you the loud family.

McDad is leaning deaf but still, it seems to fit

the force that goes with all things McGinn.

 

And see, how the spirit of Christ within

is taming you… not a broken horse

But tempered, strong, and with a quiet joy.

 

We thank you for your nightly prayers

and the way, you’ve endured your own silent pains.

How is it that when you listen, my wife feels heard?

 

But when I try the same … well,

it just isn’t the same.

 

And now,             a pause

I know that it's a prejudice

born of being born to you, But when it comes to you

(or Momma Ellie as she goes)

I see a broken titan,

patched with gold.

 

A woman of rare and enduring beauty.

 

My first mental picture, photograph derived

shows a little girl with hand-tinted lips

and red brown hair. They say

You favored Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz.

Or next, Audrey Hepburn in your senior picture.

 

Oh, what an image.

Gentle slope of a V-neck draped cross your shoulders,

elegant pearls and hair cut

daring short. Class mates would

remember the Knuckey girl, top of the class

and editor, with a cutting edge

and wild side.

Next mental picture shows you, just before you met my dad

breaking from the surf with scuba mask.

Thin cigarettes balanced on your lips, spooned hips

packaged in pencil leg jeans.

 

At eighteen you bought a one way ticket

AWAY From tradition and old church ways

to a California of convertibles and gold dust.

seagulls and stars.

 

Three years later you would wed

a young engineer and outdoorsman.

sturdy with a zest for life,

the music of the Kingston Trio

dancing in your heads.

 

I see you there

rushing from the pines of the Wayside chapel

up the ragged coast

to the boats and rivers,

to your own pizza business

two kids,

and a small farm

so rich in childhood memories.

 

Next mental picture has you asking me (age seven)

What ever do you mean “Are you saved?”

 

As it is, I’d gone to some kid-hood missionary campaign

replete with sword drills and flannel-graph epics;

We learned of Pilgrim and his burden

emptied at the cross; and though I had yet

to visit either the Vanity Fair or the Slough of Despond

I said “yes” to the Celestial City.

 

Some weeks later you did too.

 

Conversion, for you

was never like a shift in sentiments,

No – it was like the first day of creation.

 

And that light

has been your life

every waking day.

and night.

 

And what a night it’s been.

 

I hope you will not mind, If I skip the glory years

when you stood strong

as Mom and wife

or, as missionary to the street-crowd,

Carrie Nation for the cause of Modesty,

Healer of other folk’s marriages.

 

Nor do I think you’ll mind

if I skip the greater part of night

(Though, how long it lasts).

Two husbands down, and no one now to share

your dreams of aging into godly grace and ministry.

 

Distant children,

Distant dreams,

And distance

sometimes even for us.

 

You take your wine, right off the vine;  I like mine with age.

You take your kingdom in the future, past apocalypse and caged

in a thousand years. I’ll take mine – right now, albeit slow and growing like a mighty tree throughout the earth until the final day, when heaven crashes through the walls.

 

You take your gospel southern,

I drink mine pure black.

and

You walk in the spirit of conviction …

about some things, of which we are not convinced.

 

But even with our differences…

 

You have born

the hard humility

of giving everything to Jesus

Only to have him take your offer.

 

Dignity – His.

Family – His

Pleasure in the present – His.

All your hopes and dreams – His.

--

 

I see you now sometimes,

burdened down and grey

like a full-bodied version of Mini-Pearl

replete with Hawaiian drape-dress,

funky hat, and walker decked in ribbons.

 

I see you hitting the tambourine with streamers,

or doing the soft foot jig

before Baptists ever dreamed of such.

 

I see you                           (Oh this is funny)

Throwing litter back into the open window

of an offending motorist in a parking lot.

You say: “I think you lost this.”

 

I see you walking up to laughing black-men

dressed in suits and telling them how “gorgeous” they look.

 

I see you at the jail, or on the plane,

in the lanes and byways,

asking folks what they would say to God

if they met him tonight.

 

I see you walking into strip joints

past the surly hard-eyed stares,

and naked flesh to find

some gal who’d like to leave the life

but has to make a living.

And she’s thinking about Jesus.

 

I see you on your knees

every night, with sobs

like Monica weeping for her kids.

 

I see so many hearts,

now broken into, by the savior of the world.

 

I see a woman

Spit, chewed, and broken

like the fine Art of God.

 

I see some Titan, on

the other side of life

taller­­ than a Redwood.

 

I see one

of whom the world

was not worthy.