Johns Poems

                                                 INTRODUCTION

If you knew Pauline, you realized a fact about her that was forever unchanged, namely that she was faithful unto death to her God and that she lived non-vicariously through her poetry. Her devotion and her writings were personal, honest and touched the reader with an ever present longing.  Time changes most circumstances in life.  It seems things rarely stay the same.  Mother was a contradiction to that thought. Even as the world changed around her, she remained faithful to her God and to her poetry.

She moved numerous times over the years, living in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia and no matter where she lived at the time, her way of life was preserved by her unwavering devotion to the things most important to her.  She loved God, she loved her family and she wove those things, along with her great love for Kentucky into her poetry. She liked to clip pictures from magazines and books and make scrapbooks of her favorite things and would often write lyrical sentences or captions beneath the pictures that made them personal and gave the impression that you were seeing the everyday for the very first time.   She would also rock, for hours at a time, in her rocking chair while reading the Bible, or the Readers Digest, or the Saturday Evening Post.  She loved cats and often would find one purring at her feet.  She liked meeting new people and discussing the Bible with them. If the person she met was interested, she would offer to study the Bible with them in their home.  There were many such “Bible Studies” that she participated in, often walking long distances just to spend an hour or so talking about the Bible. In all the years I was at home, I never once heard her complain about being tired, or too busy to go to one of her studies.  She not only viewed those Bible studies as a wonderful opportunity to teach people of God, she viewed them as a privilege that God had extended to her.

 She liked going to the movies now and again also.  William Holden was her favorite actor and musicals and love stories were her favorite movies.  She grew excited by the change of seasons as well and wrote many poems of the beautiful and lonely months of autumn, the cold and freshness of winter, and the grand beginning of new birth in spring.  It was the summer however, with its magnificent flowers and greenery, its singing birds and fluttering butterflies that seemed to fascinate her the most.  She wrote many poems of June and July, of the happiness roaming the meadows and hills of Kentucky.   She met Clayton DeArmond, her first husband, in July and he became subject of numerous poems.  Her writings were a constant longing for Clayton and Kentucky and the two soon became inseparable from one another. Many of her writings were self-healing as well, as she soothed her heart and reminisced of her lost happiness

So it is that I share my love for my Mother with you.

I will always remember, with great admiration, her kindness, her sweetness, her humble spirit and those sad eyes. I will remember her not only for what she constantly strived to teach me, but for what she meant to everyone who knew her.

The last time I returned to Kentucky, where I was born, was several years ago and although I didn’t remember many of the small towns and villages we passed through, it really didn’t matter.  I was home. Driving to Bowling Green with my wife Valerie to visit with some of her relatives, it seemed that I had never left there.  The mountains and the smell of the countryside reminded me that one never really forgets Kentucky and Kentucky never leaves them. It’s as if all those wonderful first things that ever happened to you in your life began here. It really didn’t matter much if they actually did or not.  Just believing was enough.

It was a marvelous spring day when I turned onto Kentucky State Road 979, a 19 mile stretch of road which junctions with State Road 122 at Hi Hat and stretches to route 23 in Harold. I suddenly remembered that my Mother had written a poem about the very road I was driving on. It was raining the day she wrote the poem titled Highway 979 and I suppose it was then that I realized the great influence that Kentucky had on her as she grew from a young girl to wife and Mother.

 As I drove along the meandering hills and luscious greenery, I imagined the call of an old owl echoing through the trees and the holly hocks dancing in the air. Mother’s words and memories resonated in my thoughts.  She loved this country.  Her poems spoke the language of the hills and the meadows and the winding streams.  She was one with the lilacs, the larks, the honeysuckle and summer nights. She used to describe sitting with her sister Nell on the stoop of their old farm house, counting the stars and mocking the call of the whippoorwill. Mother was entwined with Kentucky and Kentucky would live in her heart all her days, no matter where she roamed.  Her poetry, tender and heartfelt, reflects the simplicity and heart piercing phases and stanzas that developed within her in those childhood and young adult periods. Her first love and first husband, Clayton DeArmond, was another reason to always remember Kentucky fondly.  Clayton lived on a nearby farm (in Muhlenberg County) and as time went on became interested in Pauline, walking a long distance to visit her, often after a long day of working on the farm.  Many of Mothers poems reflect her joy as Clayton would appear in the meadow, coming to visit, his blue eyes sparkling in the evening sun.  Yes, she loved those days and kept them in her heart always.

 I continued on highway 979, wondering if Mother had noticed the very large and very old oak tree I drove past.  I wondered, too, if the old oak had looked the same through the rain as it did through my tears. 

 John malcolm Pouch, 2007

Highway 979

The soft rain fell with

A silent sound.

Tiny green frogs appeared

All around

Hopping across the silvery

Road way

In cool wet relief from a

Hot summer day.

The dark mountains loomed

To the pale gray sky,

Their peaks were obscured by

The mist swirling by.

Suddenly the wind sprang strong

And the lightening flashed.

An old owl cried out as

The thunder crashed,

Yet my sorrowing heart

Rejoiced for awhile,

Put to rest by the storm

As we traveled each mile.

I am amazed by how

Often my thoughts stray

To that bygone drive down

A Kentucky highway.

1955 Huntington, W.Va.

Share more of Paulines heart-felt poetry at http://www.freewebs.com/paulinecollier

 Mary Pauline Collier Pouch

           1909-1998

 Kentucky Woman 2007

           LuLu Press