Ethel Dahir always had dirt
underneath her fingernails
even on Sundays
when we went to her house
for pie made from strawberries
right out of her garden
and coffee, well, the grown-ups
drank cup after cup
while Ethel squeezed me
lemonade in a tall blue glass
with clouds of ice.<\/p>\n
It was fascinating Reddish-brown, like good rock, I\u2019d run my eyes along her lined I would go home and dream One Sunday visit, Ethel took me out Enough of all this chatting!<\/em> Kneeling, she took those mysterious I knew that all summer long Louisa Loveridge Gallas<\/em><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Basic Hygiene Ethel Dahir always had dirtunderneath her fingernailseven on Sundayswhen we went to her housefor pie made from strawberriesright out of her gardenand coffee, well, the grown-upsdrank cup after cupwhile Ethel squeezed melemonade in a tall blue glasswith clouds of ice. It was fascinatinghow Ethel didn\u2019t totally wash upbefore our visit. I\u2019d sneak looksat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-poems","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
how Ethel didn\u2019t totally wash up
before our visit. I\u2019d sneak looks
at her strange hands which I supposed
were because Ethel lived in the country
and had married a farmer during
The Depression: Absolutely<\/em>
Salt of the Earth<\/em>
my mom would always say
as we drove toward Ethel
and away from town.<\/p>\n
the backs of Ethel\u2019s hands made
the tea cup fingers of city ladies
seem pale as slugs.
Dark blue veins were merging rivers
that fed into her torn knuckles
full of new scratches and tiny scars.<\/p>\n
rough fingers until there they were,
her jagged nails and the dirt beneath
which would leave me to wonder
about basic hygiene and the pie
like did she really clean the strawberries
or had they gone into the cooking pot
with just a little dirt left on them, too?<\/p>\n
of Ethel\u2019s hands: how life
has gross and fertile secrets
beyond my mother\u2019s house
and wake up queasy like when
I\u2019d see earthworms\u2019 slimy bodies
on the sidewalks after heavy rain.<\/p>\n
to dig potatoes after a sun-shower.<\/p>\n
she said. Now\u2019s just the best time<\/em>
to stick your hand into the earth<\/em>
and poke around \u2018til you get<\/em>
a good-sized one, then<\/em>
loosen it up.<\/em><\/p>\n
fingers of hers, worked them
into the ground, wet from rain
and warm, just to give me the feel
for digging. I fell to my knees
in my fancy clothes, with a sudden
thirst for the earth, plunged in
alongside Ethel.
And in that moment
when she pulled her arms
out of the dirt, right then,
Ethel\u2019s hands flew into my soul
like the Book of Revelation.<\/p>\n
Ethel wore the Earth
like her Sunday clothes.<\/p>\n