Journal of a Living Lady #103

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Buddy is not a connoisseur of elegant words.  He is poetically challenged. Trust me when I say Buddy doesn’t know a sonnet from a sun bonnet. Finishing an elementary “Roses are Red” verse would be a formidable task for him. There is an explanation for his lack of rhyming aptitude.

Keeping food on the table took priority over education in the depression era. Yet, Buddy did finish high school and later the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation much to his credit. Though a poor poet, he is a great aircraft mechanic and a mighty fine husband.

Buddy grew up working Mississippi fields with stubborn mules. He didn’t read poetry while pushing a plow or relax under a willow tree penning his inner thoughts. A practical fellow, my Buddy is. He is sentimental, but never gushy.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the daily newspaper yesterday and found an envelope addressed to “Nannio.” Nobody calls me that but Buddy. It is his pet name for me, used only and always as a name of endearment.

While not a poet, Buddy is artistic. The  envelope was hand-decorated with colorful hearts, arrows and frilly little swirls. This is a departure from his usual doodling of horse derrieres and swishing tails.

 I gently pulled at the glued edges of the paper envelope, not wanting to spoil Buddy’s unusual canvas.  Inside was a note that began,  “In my heart I wonder why it so often seems to be I can never say the things that really mean the most to me.”

 Each line was beautifully crafted with such depth of emotion. Buddy appended the poem with carefully underlined words, “You are so beautiful to me!”  He tediously embellished the bottom corner of the page with an exploding red heart.

I take it all back. Maybe Buddy is a poet after all, a brilliant one at that. Then, perhaps not. In fact, I seriously doubt it.

His neat signature hints plagiarism: “Henry Wadsworth Kelly.”

 

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February 21, 2001