Date Posted:21:49:09 03/06/08 Thu Author: Jake Subject: Grandfather (P)
Grandfather
Your letters rest within a treasure box
That I keep on the first shelf
Just inside the closet door. On quiet days
I reverently lift them, on by one, to very lightly touch
The faintly yellowing pages, using just my barest
Fingertips. And with the opening of the box
Comes a faint-sweet scent
That only I can smell – the smoky comfort of a good cigar
and the coolness of the wind
As it sighed lightly through the steady trunks of the tall trees
Behind your house, where you first took me walking
So many years ago, and I was so small you had to carry me
Over that huge fallen oak that stood
Between us and our journey.
And sometimes, as I re-read your accounts of all the lovely winged visitors
That come daily to your kitchen window, the words of your scriptures take flight
Through the airy space of memory, and I dream
Of bird-watching,
Of deep, wooded paths.
A warmth enfolds me, as if I am
Ten years old again, and you are teaching me
To call the birds by their names, so I may share
In their dignity. And I remember when I asked you
How it was that birds could fly, and you told me
They are much stronger than they appear.
And sometimes, now, in the quiet corners of the morning
When I look out through my own kitchen window
And across the garden, I stand very still.
I watch the birds as they nibble seeds
From the feeders I placed there with you in my heart,
And I call them by their names – cardinal, finch, bunting, grosbeak –
Because you taught me their dignity. And in each
Delicate, jerking movement, the flutter of small wings,
The tiny twitters and songs, your sparkling light eyes are there
Looking down on me, and in the air seems to come
The faint-sweet smell of cigar smoke, carried on a cool breeze.
