Grandmother

Origins slip

as memory sleeps

deep as covered words.

The silence of untold

traditions folded up

in letters with bleeding ink.

The pink

rose borders adorn

yet prick like thorns

for flowers unsmelled

and fears unfelled.

I have ignored

her life’s reports

of sewing and mowing;

she told of

reunions by the lake,

and related

news of

views of

the mountains

and hovering hummingbirds

or cousins taken ill, please pray for pity’s sake.

She gave

me recipes of potato salad

and rhubarb sauce,

both slightly sweetened,

like ages-old hymns

at summer church socials.

Her husband pulled the whole engine out

and replaced it with a new stout block

while she split hard wood as flocks

of wild geese made wing to warmer climes.

Those were steel times

known to me now by

the delicate paper I hold

with the torn fold.

Today, her home is sun

and water;

her letter wings

to me still with practiced hands

that appear as weeping windows,

ancient glass, melted sand.

I recollect my life through hers

but the memory of her loss still hurts

like soft blooms nipped off young stems.

grandmother

by troy cady