The Clothes Line Poem

THE CLOTHES LINE POEM
Clothes line was a news forecast to dry.

It also was a friendly link

For neighbors always knew

If company had stopped on by

To spend a night or two.

For then you'd see the 'fancy sheets'

And towels upon the line;

You'd see the 'company table cloths'

With intricate design.

The line announced a baby's birth

To folks who lived inside

As brand new infant clothes were hung

So carefully with pride.

The ages of the children could

So readily be known

By watching how the sizes changed

You'd know how much they'd grown.

It also told when illness struck,

As extra sheets were hung;

Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,

Haphazardly were strung.

It said, 'Gone on vacation now'

When lines hung limp and bare.

It told, 'We're back!' when full lines sagged

With not an inch to spare.

New folks in town were scorned upon

If wash was dingy gray,

As neighbors carefully raised their brows,

And looked the other way.

But clotheslines now are of the past

For dryers make work less.

Now what goes on inside a home

Is anybody's guess.

I really miss that way of life.

It was a friendly sign

When neighbors knew each other best

By what hung on the line!
~Marilyn K. Walker ~

I am happy to say, there is no clothes dryer at my house, only 4 long lines that let the sun and wind do the work.

I so remember as a child, my mother and grandmother hanging clothes while chatting to the neighbor as they did the same thing. Lines strung close to fence lines, making conversation easy. My lines are by the fence line too, put there decades and decades ago, and I suspect that on the other side of the fence, there once stood a clothesline.

Today is "whites day" sun shining bright, natures bleach. Bed linens and snowy white curtains, moving gracefully in the gentle breeze like great sails, perhaps like the ones on the Clipper ship that took my mothers Sea Captain great uncle from Nova Scotia to Boston, built so carefully by his brother. If you like, you can see photos of these two men in a previous post