Lucinda Matlock

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.

        Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

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Note

Lucinda 'Matlock' was a real person: Lucinda Wasson, the poet's grandmother.
The family lived in Lewisburg, Illinois. This one too reminds me of some
Conchlers I know. One wonders if the poet based 'William Jones' on the
naturalist W. S. Strode. And, as Marian Havlik pointed out, the poem adds a
little to our lore of graves covered with shells.

Although each poems can stand on its own, there is a whole town of them.
They intertwine, often giving two very different views on the same event --
like the hero who ascribes all his virtue to his parents, and his mother who
secretly knows he was adopted and is proud of him. The full range of life is
represented. In the play version, actors come to the stage one by one to
recite these brief stories, occasionally breaking to sing an interlude
ending:

Spoon River, Spoon River is calling me home.

I haven't seen that in years, but would like to. Thanks to the Illinoians
and others who commented on the real world of Spoon River.

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama