God willin' and the crick don't rise.

That's my mommy, about to hop the fence in her 60 year old body when that man leered at my daughter's backside. I had to pry her off the wired metal before she did an Olympic pole vault to shame the world. Lord help that man; he was two inches near a beating he could never imagine an old Kentucky woman could give him.

He clearly grew up in the flatlands, but his Tennessee parents knew—them trying to smooth things over while noticeably eyeing how fast they could get to their shotgun in the house. They knew, yessiree. They knew they had a better chance of outrunning a George Romero zombie than an angry ole hill lady.

That's my mommy with a baseball bat by the front door, and heaven help you if you get up on that porch without yelling through the door, "Mamaw, it's me*, don't hit me with that baseball bat."

(*Or you can say your relation to someone she knows, like 'Its Mima Jo Bailey's daughter', because relations are everything.)

And that's my mommy, cause that's what we call our mommas, if we want. My momma, her momma, her momma, her momma. Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. You can pry the word mommy out of our cold dead mountain hands.

And that's my gramma, whose says, "If you smell cucumber in the weeds, best stay away cuz that's a copperhead." And that's my cousin's mamaw who'll take that snake out any way she can if it threatens little legs.

And maybe they sound tough, these old Kentucky women, like you're expecting them to fight a bear, but sometimes it's the quiet backwoods aqua tofana that gets a man who can't control his hands.

Sometimes it's the careful rebellion of rotating the hunting gun through the house and when the husband says, "Where's the shotgun?", she says, "I dunno, didn't you last leave it in the attic?" when she knows damn well she moved it to the closet, and "Didn't you last leave it in the closet" when she just hid it in the basement, and "Didn't you last leave it in the basement" when she's tucked it in the attic behind old squirrel nests.

And when he finds it and says, "Dagnabbit where's the bullets?", she's done made sure the bullets are somewhere else different than the gun ever is. There are kids in the house and tempers that flare, and she isn't taking any chances, even when the frying pan is frowned upon.

Sometimes it's stepping in, in the park, when some guy harasses an unknown lady all the way across the grass. And sometimes yes, mommies, yours, mine, the next holler over, get a black eye or bloody tooth, because strong and resistant don't mean invincible, but she'll do it any way because "Young women don't deserve to be harassed."

Sometimes it's stepping to a teacher who doesn't think her kids are worth the time it takes to teach them math. I cheered the day my mommy sat in that tiny room with the principal and the geometry teacher, demanding to know why the teacher refused to sign my schedule to take Algebra II.

"I just don't think she can do it," the teacher's head tottled with smug squinting eyes, chin lifted up like a wood hog's bristles.

I howled inside when mommy shot that roadblock down by asking with an intense return squint, chin down so no one missed it, "How do you know? Did ya test her?"—which forced a resentful confession of a "No."— "Well test her or let her in!" And that was that, 'cause what can you say to a snappy lady who sees you tell a girl "She cain't". Oh, she can, or you'll find out.

And that's my mommy, resisting God, when God tells Churches to tell us to submit to authority that powders us to dust under their authoritative boot. And thats my mommy, holding her faith when others want to pry it out of her wrinkled fingers. She rails at God and cradles God, and God can't say a thing. You don't talk back to a mommy.

Except that's my mommy, teaching us to question everything and everyone and every authority, even as she sighs in exasperation, hands thrown to the sky, asking God for a little help, as we do in fact, question everything and everyone and every authority, even when rolled up all in her. And God laughs and says, "What're you looking at me for. You raised 'em. I aint' never been able to tell you nothin'. You gotta tell them nothin'."

And that's a granny/gramma/mamaw who'll forgive you against your will, even when you try to convince the world you're not worth nothin' of love. She'll say, "It's all right now, it's all right. This too shall pass, good or bad." And you'll believe her, because she'll let you crawl into bed with her, right up 'till 90 and dying, if you have a nightmare.

And when a mountain mommy cum mamaw steps off to finally meet God face-to-face, she'll stop by your dreams first if you've been good, and last if you've been not, and tell you one more time you're loved, regardless.

Then she'll climb those pearly gates and ask God where her baseball bat is, and he'll say "You don't need that here", and she'll say, "God willin' and the crick don't rise."

About the Challenge

This piece was written for Mike Singleton (Mikeydred)'s "Gunpowder: A Mikeydred November Dollar Prompt For All Vocal Creators" challenge which is an unofficial poetry and microfiction challenge". Basically this means the regular every-day-joe vocal contributor (not vocal staff) X gives a prompt from their own brain to challenge other writers to answer, and then we do, if we want. For the challenge you can write a story (this is my story entry) or poem using any of the listed themes:

"Gunpowder, Rebellion (Guy Fawkes), Bonfire Night, The Coming Of Winter or anything that is November related."

After you write and post your poem/story, put a link to it in the comments on the original post and/or also on the designated thread in the Vocal Social Society (an unofficial Facebook page) by Sunday December 1st.

This is just my blurb on it; always check the original challenge creator's page for details.

About me

I'm a long time lurker, recently popped up to do a little creative writing after having only two pieces up for a ridiculously long time.

They are my favorite pieces and you can find them here and here if you'd like to take a gander:

Butter Cream: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/butter-cream%3C/a%3E

When we were young: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/when-we-were-young-m7bv010dxa%3C/a%3E