Big Willie…#319

Artwork – Elizabeth Ann Johnson Murphree

Big Willie…

When days get bad within my mind,

I travel back to another time.  The

fog clears, the memory unfolds to a

gentle soul, a man among men.

I was only a child but he was my friend.

He was child of a slave woman, he was

The Masters son. 

Everyone called him Big Willie, though

when I knew him he had shriveled with

old age, a religious man, he could read

the bible without ever turning a page.

Big Willie looked upon life steadily, he

felt alive and whole, he road an old

rusty bicycle wherever he would go. 

He lived in a little house on my daddy’s

land, they respected each other, man

to man.

We buried Big Willie one cold gloomy

day, I did not understand why my best

friend had to go away.  Daddy placed a

marker upon his grave, when he bought

it he looked at me asking besides his

name what should it say.

An imaginary child even in those days, of

my childhood friend I knew exactly what I

wanted the marker to display.

“IN HIS YOUTH HE WAS NEITHER DULL NOR

WILD, HE WAS KNOW AS BIG WILLIE THE

MASTERS CHILD.”

©2012.elizabethannjohnsonmurphree