The paper is thin and smooth, just beginning to brittle.  It’s discolored to a soft, pale brown, like the props we dye in tea at the theater to look older.  But the aged look of these eight pages is genuine.  They are a typewritten flashback, a window of rippled-glass to let me peer into my family’s past.

I know very little about my Great-Great-Aunt May.  I know that she was born in North Dakota around 1886.  I know that she was married to Chart Pitt, who wrote wilderness and adventure stories, in 1909.  And I know that she, too, wrote, because eight aged pages of poetry tell me so.

April is National Poetry Month, and since I’m presently working on a badge that seeks to teach girls more about the generations before them it seems like the perfect time to share some of my writing heritage.

May Garden

My garden’s full of lovely things,
A gypsy wind, a bird that sings,
The butterflies, the humming bees,
A glimpse of far-off summer seas.

The scent of flowers that nod and sway,
And up above, and far away
Beyond the shade of pine and yew
The vaulted dome of Heaven’s blue.

- May McLeod Pitt

The Answer

I sought for peace and found it
In a lowly garden spot;
Where bloom the tall white lilies
And the Blue Forget-me-not.

I sought for hope, and found it,
In the tulips’ crimson flare,
And the golden cheer of jonquils
That blossom everywhere.

I sought for faith and found it
When the winter clouds hung low;
For I knew my garden’s glory
Lay safe beneath the snow.

- May McLeod Pitt

The Wanderer’s Wife

I had a red rose blooming,
‘Neath the dreary Arctic sky —
The cry of “gold” rang through the night,
And I left it there to die.

I planted a little garden,
On the rim of the desert gray,
But when it flowered and fruited
We were a thousand miles away.

Strange sights I’ve seen in alien lands,
And islands of the sea,
When I longed for a pansy bed,
And the neighbors in to tea.

Oft times my feet grow weary,
The trails are rough and steep,
But lies a valley beyond the hill
He must see before we sleep.

Now here in my seaside cottage,
I rose to meet the dawn,
And drop hot tears on the lilac buds,
Tomorrow “we”ll ramble on.”

- May McLeod Pitt