January 11, 2012

"Celia Olson" by Wayne Pounds

Dewey (aka Pollick) Cemetery
Lincoln County, Oklahoma









In memory of me
Celia Olson
because I lie in a vanished grave.
They put me here in the corner,
And marked the spot with sandstone
That stands for the lives of farm folk
too small for granite.

I was the daughter of Bertha Anderson Olson
born April 1872
in Hansingland Sweden.
I was married in Maysville Missouri
on September 26 1889
to a man with an ax-cut leg and a love of cards.
In 1891 I was delivered of a son named Thomas Franklin,
in 1893 delivered of a son named Hans Allen,
in 1894 delivered of a son named James William,
in 1897 delivered of a daughter named Amanda Elizabeth,
in 1898 delivered of twin girls named Early and Artie,
in 1903 delivered of a son named John Anderson,
in 1904 delivered of a son named Andrew Leland.

On a Tuesday March 20 1906 I carried home a sack of feed
and was delivered of a stillborn daughter.
Her bones cling to my side
no bigger than a rabbit’s.
On Friday three days later I died in childbed
much lamented.

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