MICAH LACEY
Kansas
About Micah LaceyOne of
Recognized for her poem, The Shack
The Shack
Way back yonder in the woods
Is a lonely, broke-down shack.
It doesn't stand, it sorta leans,
And crumbles t'wards the back.
It's been there all my days,
And those of my pa before.
It stood real proud at one time,
And so I tell its lore.
Granny's folks were Choctaw,
Come west on the Trail of Tears.
They stopped in Haskell County
And been there all these years.
Pappy come from Ireland,
A jolly, blue-eyed man.
He aimed to be a farmer
And needed him some land.
They met one day in Stigler,
Down at the gen'ral store.
Granny was buyin' calico
As Pappy swept the floor.
He spotted her right off, he said,
And loved her long black hair.
He'd tell us kids about it
While a-rockin' in his chair.
"It shined like a crow's wing,
Only prettier," he'd say.
And the old eyes would cloud
As his memory ran away.
He told us how she colored
When he gave her half a smile,
And how he wisht to see her home,
But he had to work a while.
And so she came for flour,
Or some other thing each week,
And after they'd set talkin'
Down by Old Cache Creek.
"I promised her the moon,"
He said, "but all I had to give
Was the little house I built her,
And here we came to live."
They settled in their snug abode
And raised up kids and herds.
Pappy told us all their tales
In his funny, lilting words.
Five blessed children had survived
And two sweet babies passed.
Then there was us grandkids,
Of which I was the last.
My pa was the youngest boy,
And the toughest, Pappy said.
He grew up in California,
In their years lived off the 'stead.
The Dust Bowl didn't reach
To the foothills where they were,
But the Great Depression hit,
And pretty hard, I'm sure.
So they went to pick the crops,
Whatever they could find,
With Oklahoma never far
From all their hearts and minds.
Pappy would recollect about
The day they came back home.
"Your granny kissed the floor,
After scrubbing it white as bone!"
With Pa I toured the pasture
In a rusted-out yella Ford,
But Pappy took me horseback,
The way intended by the Lord.
He'd name the wildflowers off
While we was mendin' fence,
Then he'd let me puff his pipe
And a story would commence.
Pappy taught me fishin'
And how to tend a horse,
Things I coulda never learned
In no stuffy college course.
Yet now I'm gettin' old myself,
And my four kids is grown.
I have a brand new house,
But it ain't my only home.
The old shack's leanin' still,
A-way back in the woods.
The wife says I should pull it down,
But I know I never could.
It may look bedraggled,
Abandoned, and forlorn,
But Pappy built it for his bride,
And there my pa was born.
Though they all are gone now,
The memories I share,
With granchildren 'round me
As I rock in Pappy's chair.© 2003, Micah Lacey
We asked Micah what inspired this poem and she told us: "Down the dirt road from my grandparents' house sits an empty house that hasn't been lived in in my lifetime. I was told the owners built a house across the road and just never tore the old one down. To this day, when I pass that shack, I wonder why it's still standing. This is one of my 'imaginings' on the subject.
The Dust Bowl hit Oklahoma so hard that, until the 1960's, both sides of my family went to California off and on to find work. I wanted to incorporate
that love of the land that runs so deeply that they always came home."
The Last of the Old Time Lawmen
Some tell their stories 'round the stove,
Some write 'em down in verses,
Some bog 'em down with fancy words,
Some spice 'em up with curses.
I get along as best I can
And try to tell 'em true,
But sometimes I just can't git by
Without a whopper or two.
I knew this sheriff some years back,
Stood six foot six in boots.
He had a handlebar mustache
And a shiny gold front tooth.
He cut his steak with a pocket knife
And drank Jack Daniels straight.
He had a twinkle in his eye
And a sorter lopsided gait.
Ornery as they come, he was,
And stronger than a bear.
Many's the time I saw him fight,
But I never heard him swear.
Till one day down on Main Street
In front of the barber shop,
I saw him shakin' Baldy Jones
Who was beggin' him to stop.
"Please, Sheriff," I heard Baldy say,
"Go on and put me down!"
The Sheriff just shook 'im harder,
His feet a-danglin' off the ground.
Those acquainted with Baldy knew
How much he ran his mouth.
He'd argue with the Devil hisself
That hell was north, not south.
It seems old Baldy'd drank a fifth,
As he was apt to do,
And wobbled up and down the street
Till he came upon Miss Drew.
Now, Miss Drew was the school marm,
The ugliest I ever seen,
But to someone drunk as Baldy,
I reckon she looked like a queen.
There ain't no tellin' what he said,
The way he flapped them jaws,
But the Sherriff surely heard it
And was showin' him who was boss.
He cussed poor Baldy up one side
Then cussed him down the other.
He cussed all the Jones's gone before,
Even cussed his dear old mother.
Finally when the shamed S.O.B.
Had broken down and cried,
The Sheriff dropped him in the dirt
And loped off with his crooked stride.
After that Baldy did his swiggin' at home
And Miss Drew, she moved away,
But none of us has ever forgot
The Sheriff or his swearin' that day.
He never was a church-goin' man,
But I reckon he had a good heart.
For all his other devilish ways,
He sure took that homely gal's part.
I traveled through some dusty towns
And met me some cops now and then,
But not a-one has had that swagger
Like the last of the old-time lawmen.
The Sheriff's been gone awhile now,
But still brings a tear to my eye.
I bet he's teachin' the angels to spit
At that old wood stove in the sky.© 2002, Micah Lacey
About "The Last of the Old Time Lawmen," Micah says: "I wrote it for my friend when his father passed away. He had been a sheriff in Cleveland, Oklahoma, and even though I never met him, I think he would have liked my vision of the kind of man he was. My friend's fondest memories of his dad were sitting in the shed (away from the ladies of the house) spitting Jack Daniels at the wood stove."
About Micah Lacey:
I grew up in northeastern Oklahoma, the only child of a construction worker and a homemaker. We moved a lot, wherever the work was, and I spent a lot of time alone. I began reading at the age of three to keep myself occupied. I wrote my first poem a year or two later. I'm told my great-grandmother wrote poetry, too.
While I was a suburban kid, my extended family lives in a rural area near the Arkansas border, where they've been since before statehood. Always a history buff, I was fascinated by my Cherokee and Choctaw heritage. That's the beauty of cowboy poetry: it combines the historical with the lyrical.
Now I live in the Flint Hills of Kansas (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron) with my husband, our son, and two crazy cats. I've never lived on more than an acre of land, I've never ridden a horse, and I've never been to a rodeo. But every time I drive across the prairie I feel a twinge of nostalgia for the bison and covered wagons that wandered this part of the country not so long ago. That must count for something!You can email Micah Lacey.
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