Tow Heads!!

The Little Tow Heads of Warmth Poem

In the living room father sat beside the crackling fire consumed by happiness and

never noticing the connected heads and limbs attached to velvet dresses

with satin ribbon sashes tied to little hems. The girls were like flowers etched in

his heart. The father chided the fire while they giggled in the background, he never

noticed the crate of crayons being melted, one by one, in the stove oven and then

smeared across the hearth as science experiments. The blue and yellow and pink melted

figurine candles they meshed together out of warm wax and dirt ground between little

hands was never appreciated as they hid them and quieted all suspicion with their innocent

remarks.

There were often surreptitious glances from the two pale blue eyed tow

head girls with long braids on pallid skin, yet all of this was overlooked by

the man in the timber shirt, emptying kerosene into the stove to fuel the

garden fire. His own father had wished for a cabin just like this, he quietly

reflected. Just because of the darling girls there was always a burning

candle in the little star house. No one there cared about yesterday or

tomorrow, only the fading painterly blue sky mattered. The father

watched the silhouettes run across the hills like paper dolls with long

trailing sashes fluttering like butterfly kisses before bed time. He said his prayers

and thanked the heavens above for all of his bliss and wonderment.  

What had happened was, his wife read a book about the meadows, the cabin, the winding

roads and deer antlers that would peep past meadows when they moved to this “paradise.”

He listened intently to every word as she put a paperweight on the page she read from. Her

Thoughts drew him into the kitchen, looking at the apron tied around her waist and simple

stylish yellow-blonde hair he named the girls after when he said, ‘How are my tow-heads today?”

after coming home. They loaded up the Chevrolet and went to build a home- a wooden structure

to sit in and bask in the happiness of familial bliss. 

They wanted a fairy tale, but it was nothing of the sort. The woman he loved wrote

poetry all day as the children played to keep her heart warm when she would rather pull her hair

out. She waited in quiet desperation for when, “daddy comes home,” to rescue her soul. One day she found dusty rose velvet dresses with sash bows wadded up underneath beds with crayon wax drizzled. The tow heads concocted marvelous explanations about the colorful drips on the wood floor and carpet by the hearth and stove, but never gave into the truth unless threatened with endless summer days in time-out. And this was her lot.

To the girls delight they had an assortment of items, in the one-bedroom house, consisting of paintbrushes, play-dough, musical instruments and children’s books all available upon request from the woman of the home. None of these inspired the girls as much as afternoon walks consisted of feeding the swans underneath the weeping willows and talking to their father in the fields that he plowed by hand. At dusk they would return home, watching for the flickering light from the fireplace stove through the window, this was the guidepost back to love and home. 

For my two little tow heads I call the twins. Love, Mommy (cw class).