Herman

Herman Kuethe,

Larger than life
my memories of him clear as the sky patches today,
where it is town meeting day in Vermont,
and locally in the sleepy hamlet of monkton, vermont.
Deceptively innocent.
(herman? you ask)
No Herman is (i hate the word was, he will always be, to me) a truly innocent man.
i meant it more locally but cannot be more specific than that.

He would have been 111 today,
born in 1899.
That was the game I always played
with him
since I can remember on
March 2nd.

One of the first things I remember is riding home up the little hill
on his shouders, holding his strong head
and hands
the ones that carried caskets for the funeral home
and polished the hearse
and mowed the lawns
and his with the old carbon neutral type mower.
I don't remember going there but believe
someone was looking for me when Herman brought me home.

Herman would sit, smoke his pipe, and contemplate on the porch
under the shade of that wonderful box elder. Those were those 100 degree days in Southern Illinois. I would sit and stare at him for hours, escaping my own big family, I found meditative solace in the wrinkled, weathered face, huge nose, big blue eyes, deep voice so rare (say something, i would think), the vibrations of his laughter through his big chest.

He loved me I knew, and never had to blat it out or even hint verbally.
he did not have to say it.
i knew anyway.

Happy Birthday Herman.
Love,
Mary