The Crystal Lady

The Poets Corner

Arkansas Women
By Joan Estelle High
©1998
Part 1.

Been doing a lot or reading about the women of Arkansas.
I kept looking to find some meaning in the things I saw.
We could take a trip backwards using our time machine.
Or turn on your imagination,  close your eyes and dream.

Looking for the women who have helped to shape your past.
Helps us to meet the future that seems to approach  too fast.
It is  not easy  being a women with the many roles we play.
Was lots harder for the women who lived to pave our way.

Today we limit our futures by the many paths that we take.
Not getting an education is the worst mistake you'll make.
Choosing a bad life partner can sure serve to seal your fate.
Why spend more time picking a beautician than your mate?

Uncontrolled reproduction can leave you out in the cold.
Makes your lives get sidetracked and dreams put on hold.
But at least we still do have an option at this point in time.
Why settle for a penny when life will gladly pay  a dime.

Part 2

If you had been a Indian maid born eighteen thirty six.
You wouldn't have many choices or paths in life to pick.
Very few Indian tribes had matriarchal types of society.
You got a lot of work to do and life was full of misery.

You are wearing animal skins upon your body and feet.
Just trying to keep warm in Arkansas's snow and sleet.
Moving, always moving, needing to follow game around.
Living in tents of hides, sleeping on the cold hard ground.

Standing by the Arkansas River when you're just a child.
You could see the steamboat "Comet" coming in the wild.
The white folks pushed westward, they over ran you land.
As you walked the "Trail of Tears" Cherokee was your band.

Starting out strongly,  over one thousand went on the drive.
By the time you got there only eight-eight were still alive.
Not only did you lose the only life that you really knew.
But you lost every one in your clan you were related to.

I  can  understand why you would hate the  "white man"
Until one sunny day you met a Fur-Man name of "Trapper Dan"
Big , strong and good looking and he was living off the land.
You married him and  you  moved to Texas's Rio Grand.



 Part 3

You are back in Arkansas and the year is eighteen sixty-four.
You're a young mother who has lost her man in the Civil War.
He got a mortal wound, he won't be coming back no more.
You live in Northwest Arkansas, a rustic cabin by the creek.

It has been snowing hard and you "Ain't seen a soul all week"
When the snow begins to thaw you will probably have a leak.
It's going to be a hard winter, the cabins is drafty and it's old.
No matter how you try you can not keep out the rain or cold.

You plastered the logs with mud which the rain just washed away.
Packed the dirt floor extra hard, stuffed the holes with hay
You don't have any windows but you have a door that latches.
You have a good rock fire place and a tin box full of matches.

There is a new jar of cane molasses Uncle Billie sent for free.
It'll sweeten up the children's mush and sweeten up the tea.
You "Aint got no time piece" It would tick your life away.
You had to sell the baby lambs , there were taxes left to pay.

Wishing for some corn to pop, sure would taste good tonight.
Would pop it in the fireplace and then eat it by the firelight.
Hear Aunt Succie dropped a hot coal from her pipe yesterday.
Burned most of her corn crop up and half of the field away.

Used lye soap on the kids and scrubbed them till they cried.
Then fed the little angels apples and peaches you had dried.
Pumpkins hanging from the loft are colored orange and bright.
You were sure glad the summer was dry with plenty of sunlight.

The kids helped card the cotton, cloth woven good and tight.
Walnut bark gave it a purdy color almost as dark as the night.
Well now at least the homemade cloth will show very little dirt.
You made your own pattern and sewed the boys a little shirt.

You hung a few corn ears high on rafters to dry up nice and hard.
May bust your knuckles as its' ground, glad you saved the lard.
Your carried four buckets of water from a quarter mile today.
You can't get down to the creek when the snow is in the way.

The kids worked hard today and they brought in lots of wood.
The flour's low but the salt cellars full and that is pretty good.
 You had to ride thirty miles last summer just to find some salt.
When you used up all the supplies you got from Uncle Walt.

J-Hawks came by and stole hog meat as they were heading South.
Killed your dogs and chickens while you hid under  the house.
Your homestead is getting too dangerous with no man around.
If things don't improve soon , you will have to move to town.

Maybe  your neighbor Jacob will come courting in the Spring.
And if he is down right serious then  he just might bring a ring.
You just might marry up with him, you know he is a Godly man.
Or let him move in for now and find a preacher when you can.



Part 4

The Civil War was long over , the year was eighteen ninety-four.
The women of the state went on stronger than they had before.
That Indian girl that moved to Texas to be a white man's wife.
Lived to the age of ninety-four and she had a very happy life.

The young women in Northwest Arkansas made it into Spring.
A neighbor came a courting , he brought a preacher and a ring.
Civil war brought changes somehow the women made it through.
Spite of many hardships they learned just what they could do.

A brave women of color took her first ride on a moving train.
Now days her great -grand daughter flies high in  a Navy plane.
A farmer's wife helps her husband work on their plot of land.
Standing by his side,  her baby on one hip, a rifle in her hand.

There were smarter educated women who moved to Arkansas.
When they arrived they couldn't vote or even practice law.
So there was one jubilant event that we must be sure to note.
Occurred the day the Arkansas women got the right to vote.

We say goodbye to the women who lived in the pages of history.
Mired in this present world our futures still a veil of mystery.
We must find the courage needed to face life's opportunity.
And don't let anyone take from you what you were meant to be.

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