For Gram
It’s been a summertime of solace
like I’ve had before, soaking
up the warmth of your
bright soul and listening
to your yarns and ponderings.
I’ve filled myself to overflowing
with your fresh perspective,
born of ice cream through the alleyway and
days with only soap of raging lye
and learning not to cater though you cherish.
With company along soon, we pull out
the linens, and as you taught my
mother and she taught me, we make the beds
in easy silence, tucking corners easily and
smoothing out the years of complication.
Outside the closed window a hot
breeze blows, and early in the morning
I still smell the dust that brings me home
to this desert valley—to where I came from—
when I dream of succor.
Touchstone all my life, with you
I’ve never had a moment’s disappointment …
now, that’s rare in this decrepit
world where smashing epitomes
is as daily as the paper on the front step.
Drawn to your humanity—
in that, see the likenesses we share—
and as I look at your burnished nut brown
eyes I see the goddess bound by earth,
but not forever-long.
Can any one of us examine the
mortality of those we love and avoid the
wrenching violet of sundown? You told me
as a child not to mourn when we go
since even then, you’d kiss me every night
and see me on the other side of this,
our three inches of earth-life in chalkboard dust.
So when Grandpa comes to take you home,
I’ll go and visit Dry Crick and touch
the blue pearl stone, and try to smile away.
Lara Niedermeyer’s love of writing came second to her love of dancing for thirty years. As it’s simpler to write with a child hanging off each leg than to do a pirouette, she’s made a change in direction. She adores living in the Pacific Northwest with her fabulous husband and spectacular children. She enjoys writing, reading, good television, and living the life of a realistic optimist (in which she sees no conflict).
