For Me It’s the Violets
by Debra Monthei Manske
the wild violets
purpling in the
new-green Spring grass

that sets me humming
singing the old song
“Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses”

Who taught me that song?
“covered all over from head to toe”

Who knew to help me start each
new warm season with violets

“covered all over with sweet violets.”

It must have been someone who
loved me, or the child I was

then. Someone who knew
I would need purple in Spring
and to sing.

No Bread on the Sabbath
by Debra Monthei Manske

Twelve years old, middle child,
with three ahead and three behind
up-to-the-elbows in dough
mixing and kneading the seven loaves
one for each day’s
sandwiches of sorghum and butter—
always gone by six.

Yet, day seven is the Sabbath Day
and the Lord giveth at the pot luck
following service.
Hoarded sugar makes a small cake
with sour cream, an egg and butter
(Thank-you God for the Cow.)
their offering for the feast—
a tiny show cake to ward off pity.

They fill their stomachs,
carefully, gently so as not to be
noticed by their hunger, please
and thank you at the ready

glad to be taking a plate to
a bed-ridden mom, reporting
she is doing ‘as well as can be expected,’
eating the cake on their way home.