Attribution: Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper in his feeble efforts to “organize” the keep-safe treasures of his long life ran across his mother’s book of “One Hundred And One Famous Poems,” published in 1929 just a couple of years before the keeper was born.
Mom’s small, neat signature—”Agnes Stokes” is on the inside cover and the faded pink ribbon bookmark is between “The Raven” and “God Save The Flag.”
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
“Over many a quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore
“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
“As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, tapping at my chamber door;
“Only this, and nothing more.”
The keeper and Phyllis thank his mother for her thoughtful message and reassures her that as soon as they finish reading “The Raven” they will get to that other poem about God saving the flag.
