Grandad I Remember You
Written by Yvonne
Grandparents Poems
( 2 Votes )
A decade has passed
since morning found you lifeless
and grounded me
in the reality of death,
acceptance made less pungent
by the longevity of your years.
You told me okra would bite me
and cotton would sting,
tall tales to ensure the curvature
of my young, delicate spine
would never know the bend
and pull of your daily grind.
Still, I longed to drink my coffee
black like you.
I have not forgotten the huck-huck
old age culled into your laughter,
how a relentless Georgia sun
leathered your burnt sienna skin.
You are the poem that has stuck
in my throat for 10 years, like a tear
on the edge, unwilling to risk the fall.
Every day I hear you.
Speaking to me
in the slowing of my father's gait,
swaying in the wrinkled droop
of my mother's breasts.
In the clarity of my own
ripening wisdom, I hear
the long overdue poem that is you
and like the crust of grandma's
blackberry doobie, ten minutes deep
into the oven, I am still
not quite ready to write.
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