Come And Get It? Poem by Mark Heathcote

'Come and get it? ' What a happy phrase
it reminds me of The Walton's
... weren't they all gifted on the stage.
That family who lived in rural Virginia
in the Great Depression, lived hand to mouth;
Each like some poet master or sage
or a half-starved hermit mouse about the house.
'Come and get it? ' Jumping off the porch swing,
'Come and get it? ' Running down some mountain stream,
waving a dying torch glowing in the dark starlit gleam.
'Come and get it? ' A ringing bell that sent
their hearts, ours ringing to and throw.
'Come and get it? ' A candlelit table's glow;
wet feet shaking off the dirt and snow
'Come and get it? ' What happened to all that family time?
I guess it went out of fashion like poetry and rhyme.
'Come and get it? ' They slavered around the mouth,
each one happy to live either North or South,
but today East or West, there is no place best.
Little did they know back then.
'Come and get it? '... They were all blest.