by Olivia Dorsey Peacock<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a letter for great-grandpa<\/em> Olivia Dorsey Peacock is a family historian, poet, and tea maven based in North Carolina. She has received fellowships and support from The Watering Hole, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Arts & Science Council. She is currently serving as Charlotte Lit\u2019s 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow and previously served as a 2025 Goodyear Arts Artist-in-Residence. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Jefferson<\/em>, poetry.onl<\/a><\/em>, and Shot Glass Journal<\/em>. Follow her @ohdeepeacock and find her work at oliviapeacock.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Olivia Dorsey Peacock a letter for great-grandpa your children insist i know nothing of survival could not imagine tilling soil with hands raw excavatinglife from snow the harshness of your wordswaking at dawn caressing young hands that churnedcows\u2019 milk into butter nursingthe wounds of a beaten and aging brother could not imagine escaping fields of brown,falling from golden heightsin kiss\u2019s breath death resigningto home under boulders trading forincessant throbs crushed arm, crushed femur. i know i think of you oftentorso dragging limbs across your fields, plow neglectedwith the hardheadedness of thosesun-dried South Carolina fathersrefined by mountains calluses scented with limestonedusted in soda ash painted in red clayclinging to dignity alwaysbehind eyes always, all those tearsan offering. Olivia Dorsey Peacock is a family historian, poet, and tea maven based in North Carolina. She has received fellowships and support from The Watering Hole, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Arts & Science Council. She is currently serving as Charlotte Lit\u2019s 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow and previously served as a 2025 Goodyear Arts Artist-in-Residence. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, poetry.onl, and Shot Glass Journal. Follow her @ohdeepeacock and find her work at oliviapeacock.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-18-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
your children insist i know nothing of survival
could not imagine tilling soil with hands raw excavating
life from snow the harshness of your words
waking at dawn caressing young hands that churned
cows\u2019 milk into butter nursing
the wounds of a beaten and aging brother
could not imagine escaping fields of brown,
falling from golden heights
in kiss\u2019s breath death resigning
to home under boulders trading for
incessant throbs crushed arm, crushed femur.
i know
i think of you often
torso dragging limbs across your fields, plow neglected
with the hardheadedness of those
sun-dried South Carolina fathers
refined by mountains calluses scented with limestone
dusted in soda ash painted in red clay
clinging to dignity always
behind eyes always, all those tears
an offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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