Matilda Jane Dunbar 1845-1934

What’s a mother to do

with a son as precocious as this

what’s a freed slave woman to do

but smile at a son who poured out words

in stories      on paper        in print

what’s a mother to do

but swell with a bit of maternal pride

her son a leader of literary men

what’s a mother to think

her son out traveling the world

introduced to presidents and kings

while Jim Crow churns old hatreds

what’s a mother to do but hope

that after the searing civil war

her country will come to embrace her Paul

and all of his brothers and sisters

what’s an old black woman to do

but wake in the night terrified

as footsteps and fires still hammer and cleave

the fate of his brothers and sisters



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Matilda Jane Dunbar was the mother of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906).

Born in Dayton, Ohio, and schoolmate and friend of Orville and Wilbur Wright, Paul Laurence Dunbar was one the first influential black poets in American literature.

National Park Service: Paul Laurence Dunbar's life story

The Poetry Foundation: Paul Lawrence Dunbar

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© Frank Kearns 2015

Mortality and Canned Peas

Mortality and Canned Peas

It may sound heartless when I say

that my first memory of death

is tied to the taste and texture

of green peas from a can

When I first recalled all this

I was sure that these disparate thoughts

had accidentally bumped together

in pre-dawn mind meander time

so I circled back

around my first remembered home

first memory of mother sitting

on the low back stoop in summertime

then on to Maine and my first schools

box after box of feelings to sort through

or more like stacks of wrinkled paper

to be examined each in turn

and here it was        the classmate

disappeared from school one day

my parents told me

as supper sat untouched on plates

told me heaven makes this all OK

and so began digestion of

life and tuna casserole

and soggy tasting green peas from a can

© Frank Kearns 2015

My Father’s House

My Father’s House

The house of my memory

is a semi-rural farm house

with musty smells of

old wall paper and indoor plants.

You              retired

sitting at the dining room table

in pajamas and bathrobe

cigarettes and coffee

AM talk radio

KFWB Boston

daily pleasure

at the agonies of the traffic report.

The house of my dream

is a different house

on a narrow fishing-town street

before great grandmother’s knick-knacks became

a part of frozen memory.

You are a boy

entering the magic door

winding up the attic staircase

the wood a lighter brown with hints of red

the steps twisting and so narrow.

The photograph is yellowed.

You are so delicate in your uniform

your China Burma India Theater patch

jumping out from small shoulders.

Your eyes are feeling something,

seeing something beyond you and me.

In the attic

rubber band model planes

delicate balsa stringers

with tissue paper skin

light as the still air.

And a homemade short wave radio set.

You hear the news

open that high peak window

lean out

and shout to the neighborhood

Pearl Harbor has been attacked!