Little Brother

Today my youngest brother would be 80 years old. He died in 1993. He and his wife, Jean came to live at my house in 1992 in their 50 foot trailer for several months. Emil put up a six-foot high cedar board fence on the west side of the house to enclose my back yard. Ron had installed a 4 foot wire fence twenty years earlier. Emil did a number of other things most of which I have forgotten.
Anyway he and I were more than 5 years younger than Ruth and James. We played together a lot after he managed to walk around without diapers. Mostly Emil followed me around before I started school and was a willing accomplice in playing house. I wrote a poem about what we did. In loving memory here it is...
LITTLE BROTHER
We talked when together my brother and I
How we laid in the grass and looked at the sky
Clouds illustrated rhymes Mama would read
A dog with a spoon or the Banbury steed
Time passed and the shapes were no more
When I was six and my brother was four.
We'd crawl under the spruce out by the barn
To watch the nest and hear the bird mourn
The soft needles cradled us and we felt cool
Late in the day when I came home from school
There was nothing to do, not one little chore
When I was six and my brother was four.
We cooled in the rain barrel under hot sun
Drove away in a jacked car when we were done
Curled up in a tire, Sis rolled us downhill
Scary but thrilling, I remember it still
We fell and got dirty right down to the core
When I was six and my brother was four.
While Mama and Daddy milked Brownie and Nellie
Each sat on a stool, heads braced on the belly
Milk stung in the pail until it was full
And filling a pail took many a pull
We cuddled soft kittens on the barn floor
When I was six and my brother was four.
When the handle turned faster skim milk would pour
Out of the separator into the pail on the floor
Foam would rise up like clouds in the sky
Mama put it in bowls for brother and I
With sugar we called it ice cream, we were poor
When I was six and my brother was four.
Now I sit alone and stare at the wall
And reflect with regret one act I recall
The time that a hammer came down on his head
I was spanked but he did the crying instead
I mourn because we can talk no more
About when I was six and my brother was four.
Naomi Sherer