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Village at Night
#TributeInInk
With callous hands
and clogged cladded feet
the village lady descends
towards the clear running creek
A stone bridge to the left
and waterwheel to her right
this blue skirted lady collects
fresh water for the night
With oil lamp illuminating
above her oaken cottage door
this Bavarian mother finishes
her last nightly chore
The next morning a soldier
awakes this mother of five
with the sad Prussian war news
that her husband has died
She is now a widow
with a house full of youth
as the approaching warring factions
show no sign of truths
Goodbye, she says
to her ‘Village at Night’
I must go to American
and start a new life
This poem is a tribute to my great great grandmother, Elizabeth, who lost her husband during the Prussian war around the mid 1860’s. She managed to arrange transportation for herself and her five children from Germany to the United States, settling the family in Indiana (USA) just after the Civil War. I always wondered what her life was like when she was ‘across the pond’.
This poem setting surmise comes from my interpretation of an oil on canvas painting called ‘Village At Night’ by Joseph Fruhmesser which, as a family heirloom, hangs in our dining room and illustrates a Bavarian region in southern Germany.
Perhaps the lady in the painting is my great great grandmother Elizabeth ???
With callous hands
and clogged cladded feet
the village lady descends
towards the clear running creek
A stone bridge to the left
and waterwheel to her right
this blue skirted lady collects
fresh water for the night
With oil lamp illuminating
above her oaken cottage door
this Bavarian mother finishes
her last nightly chore
The next morning a soldier
awakes this mother of five
with the sad Prussian war news
that her husband has died
She is now a widow
with a house full of youth
as the approaching warring factions
show no sign of truths
Goodbye, she says
to her ‘Village at Night’
I must go to American
and start a new life
This poem is a tribute to my great great grandmother, Elizabeth, who lost her husband during the Prussian war around the mid 1860’s. She managed to arrange transportation for herself and her five children from Germany to the United States, settling the family in Indiana (USA) just after the Civil War. I always wondered what her life was like when she was ‘across the pond’.
This poem setting surmise comes from my interpretation of an oil on canvas painting called ‘Village At Night’ by Joseph Fruhmesser which, as a family heirloom, hangs in our dining room and illustrates a Bavarian region in southern Germany.
Perhaps the lady in the painting is my great great grandmother Elizabeth ???
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