A Yellow House in Iredell County
A poem — to immortalize a love worth telling and a house that carries their memories in its heart
Nestled… in the dappled Spring sunlight peeking through oaks, maples, and Tulip poplar is a country house with pale-yellow siding. Across a corner of the weathered wooden-slatted front porch, a vine lazily stretches to find a spot in the sun. Inside, the navy-blue carpet runner slinks up the beautiful wooden stairs that Pop built with bony-knuckled, work-deep hands. He’d have worked quietly, smiling as he thought of the lovely young lady with the yellow flower behind her ear, that caught him by the heart some fifty years past. At the wane of her she rang the bell, a silver tinkling call. He shuffled to her bedside, leaned close. “Pop, will you hold my hand?” The front parlor is very much the same; an old-fashioned sitting room with milk-cream white, antique furniture, perched on mahogany clawed feet, elegance immutable, unmoved. A portrait of my young mother hangs there on the wall in ornate frame, her eyes the fore-mothers to mine.
Arising there, a China cabinet, its gifts enclosed in a hug. Atop a pedestal table, hand-sanded and love-stained, Mom’s Christmas cactus trails and cascades in forest greens awaiting pink-winged petals, alighting in season, a crescendo of bloom framed in autumn-light meandering through remembrance like a dream. Mamaw’s spirit lingers there, her high-bubbled laugh carrying on like a song, her quiet dignity still holding together the air that holds up this house. In the kitchen she makes her list, there at oval table; the names of all the children she loves. Do you see her sitting there? There are so many children here now. Pop would have snagged them one by one with a devilish grin, with navy-socked feet smelling of sweat and dust, and of the garden where his watermelons juiced and plumped on the vine. Wriggling, giggling children were no match for the snare of Pop’s feet. His tender chuckle rolls quietly by on the wind. Presently, titmouse and chickadee swoop down from the trees to gather black sunflower seeds, meal worm, and millet; their warbling chatter and brief staccato chirps a cacophony of tales wrapping a yellow house in Iredell County with enduring melodic memory. At night, a yellow house sleeps with a smile.
Pop once told me that he showed up to pick Mamaw up for their first date. She had a yellow flower in her hair. He said, “I took one look at her, and I never looked back.”
Christina Ward is a poet who loves writing about her experiences, her family, and her love for the environment. You can follow her work and/or become a fan here: Fiddleheads & Floss Poetry
Author’s note: This poem is featured in my first book entitled “organic” which is Fiddleheads & Floss vol 1. You can also view a reading from the book at A reading from organic.