Frank to Frances/Frances to Frank

6/22/22

Here are two poems to stir your sense of belonging.

The first is one my grandfather wrote to me - on an unknown date - followed by the one I wrote back to him today, over 25 years after his passing.

Papa was a preacher, a farmer and a poet. (He was also a comedian and full of mischief.)

I found that in so many ways he passed off some of his spirit to me as he went on.

These are his words left handwritten on notebook paper with the directions, “For Frances.” I never saw them until many years after his death. On this same piece of paper was another beautiful poem about “little things” having great meaning in life.

Papa was born in Dutch Cove in Haywood County of the Western North Carolina mountains in 1900. He grew up walking without shoes back and forth to town and having “dental issues” dealt with by placing a chin in the crook of a tree and wincing while someone yanked. Papa left the holler to become an educated man. He was quite distinguished when I knew him. When I think of him I smell sweet tobacco from his pipe and I can feel my hand on his arm, caring tenderly for him as he aged.

Poetry was his great gift.

Remembering

When night has thickly spread its pall

The wildcats and hootowls cry

and the lures of distance call

and nighthawks cry

The brave ship greets the lighthouse tower in passing by

So long as those who love us live

we shall not die.

Frank Smathers

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Remembering

When bright sun leans to end-of-day

and arcs through windows,

crowning cranes and circling fins

and ripples on Perdido Bay

the wind sweeps through the palms up to my brow as if to say

So long as those who love us guide from here-beyond

we'll know the way.

Frances Smathers Cutshaw

May your loved ones keep speaking…