| Old Man Yonder |
The year was ninety-one
When I cashed my summer in
On that wooden porch, it’s coat
Of paint winking against the sun,
And his eyes, wrinkled of wisdom
In the corners where the skin smiled.
His lips would resonate not in idle chat,
But a transformation of atmosphere.
He’d conjure time on a whim,
Like some master story-teller,
He’d weave into my mind pictures
Of the Great Depression
And one-roomed schoolhouses,
The railroad where he spent his life,
His hands still calloused, they remembered.
And sometimes he’d hobble on his cane,
Old and frail, but sure enough he’d make it
Up our steps and into our house
Where he’d paint my memories of his stories,
An ailing old man on the outside,
But a confederate, folk-artist in my eyes.
I loved him like a grandpa, those old hands
That would gently touch my cheekAnd make me believe in the
make-believe.
Till that day the ambulance came,
My dad taking me away from the window,
Tears falling into my hands,
And how I went to see him two days later,
The last time I’d ever see him,
In his army attire, a war-time hero
With closed eyes and that familiar smile,
Even in death he stayed alive,
I imagined his brave smile in the ever-after
His whisper wrapping around me in the air,
A bright August breeze bending to wipe my eyes.
Appearing in A Wrinkle In My Memory, Copyright © of Stacy Lynn Mar 2009
When I cashed my summer in
On that wooden porch, it’s coat
Of paint winking against the sun,
And his eyes, wrinkled of wisdom
In the corners where the skin smiled.
His lips would resonate not in idle chat,
But a transformation of atmosphere.
He’d conjure time on a whim,
Like some master story-teller,
He’d weave into my mind pictures
Of the Great Depression
And one-roomed schoolhouses,
The railroad where he spent his life,
His hands still calloused, they remembered.
And sometimes he’d hobble on his cane,
Old and frail, but sure enough he’d make it
Up our steps and into our house
Where he’d paint my memories of his stories,
An ailing old man on the outside,
But a confederate, folk-artist in my eyes.
I loved him like a grandpa, those old hands
That would gently touch my cheekAnd make me believe in the
make-believe.
Till that day the ambulance came,
My dad taking me away from the window,
Tears falling into my hands,
And how I went to see him two days later,
The last time I’d ever see him,
In his army attire, a war-time hero
With closed eyes and that familiar smile,
Even in death he stayed alive,
I imagined his brave smile in the ever-after
His whisper wrapping around me in the air,
A bright August breeze bending to wipe my eyes.
Appearing in A Wrinkle In My Memory, Copyright © of Stacy Lynn Mar 2009
| ~A woman who writes feels too much, those trances and portents! As if cycles and children and islands weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips and vegetables were never enough. She thinks she can warn the stars. A writer is essentially a spy. Dear love, I am that girl.~ Anne Sexton |
| Stacy Lynn Mar |