Woodstove and Woolens

  When I was a child, I never walked into my grandma's kitchen when it wasn't hot.  I wrote this poem as a memory:


                                         Her kitchen was warm every day.
                                         Some say it was the biscuits
                                         that did it,
                                         But I knew better--
                                         It was the woodstove and woolens.
                                         Gram would never let them dry outside
                                         stretching out of shape and freezing
                                         into hard rocks that had been flattened
                                         and shaped by the hand cranked wringer.
                                         Selecting the right pieces of wood
                                         for the stove was an art
                                         learned from another kitchen expert.
                                         The white cat would pant from the heat,
                                         or perhaps from contentment,
                                         watching her cover the wooden rack,
                                         then put it in the right place so as
                                         the woolens would dry
                                         as she mixed the dough that would
                                         become biscuits--hot and ready
                                         for the newly churned butter.