Old-Fashioned

They said, "She was Old-Fashioned",
And didn't take on the new.
I wondered what they meant by that,
And I wished...I knew.

She lived so many years behind,
They said she couldn't change.
That she possessed some daily ways,
That made her strange.

They said she had a silent tongue,
That spoke once in a while.
That only a few had ever seen,
The contour of her smile.

She always read from out a book,
She found her comfort there.
To see her moving lips form words,
You'd think it was in prayer.

They said she was Old-Fashioned,
That her inward self was pearled.
That she had a wondrous heart of gold,
Free from the ways of the world.


E.P. 1908 - 1989