Amanuensis Monday - Grandma Hill's Poetry, week 8

SOLITAIRE

 

When I'm tired, and wish to forget work and care

I get my old deck and play a few games of solitaire.

Whne my dogs want to bark, and my limbs ache

I play 18 ways of solitaire for my nerve's sake.

 

Sometimes I play twins, Minneapolis and St. Paul

Maybe I win, and again, maybe the right cards won't fall.

I play California when I wish the day to be sunny.

But often it rains there, and I lose my hard earned money.

 

Sometimes I play my other twins, Chicago and St. Joe

That's when I want to go to my very own native state

Where the tall corn and enormous pumpkins grow.

Where I always went to work early, and went to bed late.

 

Sometimes it's a la Ferris Wheel, where the queens I crown.

Sixes build up to the Jacks, and fives to the Kings build down.

Sometimes I shuffle and shuffle, in a hunt for the aces

And usually,m they never show a tiny peep of their faces.

 

Sometimes 'tis the ever losing game of Gambler's Delight

Then I think, how foolish is the poor duped fool's plight.

When he loses his money, and everything, even his shirt,

And his shoes and his poor naked feet are out in the dirt.

 

I play up and down Germany, when I want to fight

I think of the Nazis and the cards flop with all my might.

What I think of the beasts? The words I won't even try to spell.

They'll never go to Heaven, they are too mean to go to H--l.

 

According to my various moods, the others, in I mix.

But when I lose on all of them, I'm in a terrible fix.

Sometimes I feel much better, quite happy and gay.

Other times, I get mad, and put the cards away.

 

Then I think I'll put in my time with a good book.

Sometimes I get busy with thread and crochet hook.

But more often, when I have a little spare time.

My pen gets busy, to spell out some silly rhyme.

Nancy Jane Wiley Hill (1875-1960) was always writing something.  Many of those poems are now in the possession of her granddaughter Shirley Kern.  Shirley, with the help of her sister-in-law Ruth Ormsby, transcribed these poems in 1996 for a Hill-Ormsby-Kern family reunion.  I am going to post many of these poems so that they may be enjoyed by all.

These are copyright 1996 and reprinted with permission.