Katherine Y Nitsch - 2012 © 2018
On a hot Topeka day, school books set aside
A tender sweetheart crush she’d one day be his bride
Trading autographs, summer lay ahead
Each page a work of art; this is what one said:
When this life on earth is ended
And you are laid beneath the sod
May your name in gold be written
In the autograph of God
After many years of happiness, angels stood beside.
He cried upon the grave for his longtime Kansas bride.
Thinking of the words they read that sunny day,
he felt her spirit whisper do not mourn my going away.
I am the mist in morning’s sunlight
I am the fog upon the field
You can hear me in the breezes
When stillness is revealed
This youthful book of verses from long forgotten friends
sat quietly for decades: its poems, a treasure penned.
Did they know that little book, a hundred years ago,
would touch my heart with grace the words would show.
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Note: The first chorus is from a passage written in an autograph book dated 1898 which belonged to my grandmother, Grace, as a young teen in Rochester, KS (see collage photo of book page in cd). She married Kirk, one of her classmates, who also wrote in her little book. I remember my grandfather Kirk vividly but never had a chance to meet Grace since she passed away in the mid 40s.