grandmother poem

glooms of the live-oaks
a gleam of gold in gloom and gray
up and down he goes
they may talk of love in a cottage
behold me, in my chiffon, gauze and tinsel
she heard the children playing in the sun
this is the ship of pearl
into the silent land
when i was a boy at college
shades of night were falling fast
my mother taught me that every night
were it not for that singular smell
tell me less or tell me more