My Aunt Dofeen

She was always a character
In her own right,
An audacious soul
And a loving spirit.
There was a side of her
Still fighting
“The War Between the States”
That is to say
She was a Southerner
Through and through,
Yet there was another side to her
Of regal bearing
That let you know
She was a queen
And she expected
To be treated that way.
She had inherited considerable wealth
And spent or misspent
Most of it through the years,
But we loved her nonetheless
For she was definitely unique.
The voyage south
On the Yacht Araner
Was her lifelong dream
And she made the most of it.
It was an opportunity to see
The islands of the South Pacific,
To go some of the places
Her father had been
Some fifty or sixty years before.
She was an adventurer at heart
And traveled for quite a while
Throughout Fiji and Tonga
And some of the other islands.
She fell in love with
Tongan tapa cloth
And bought nearly everything
They had in the islands.
She also sent me stamps
From each place she went
To add to the collection
She had started me on
So many years before.
She got to hobnob
With some of the island royalty
Down there in the South Pacific,
Before heading back to Hawaii
To her own version of reality.