The following is a poem I started writing in 2016. A week before my grandfather’s funeral a year ago it found me again. I read it there for him (I never shared it with him when he was alive).
Apple Barn
5/23/16
The memory of him lives in barns
carved into empty spaces
where tools dream of being taken
into hands once again
They still remember building birdhouses
with nails, wood and magic
The dusty eves hold nests that
offered safety to spring hatchlings
Their eyes tightly shut,
the dangers of the world unknown
But their mouths always born
open fiercely seeking
wanting more
I can hear his shadow breathing
and when the wind turns
I smell the sweetness of apples soon to grow
Before he is gone I
dream about the day
he will die
I hope
he is doing something he loves
Perhaps on a day such as this one
he bends close to earth, his hands from birth till death
bearing the course brown of rich and tender soil
While he hovers here the clouds sing
their song of wind and shadow
the dancing limbs of branches sway
and sharp green blades of new grass
bend to his will
He smiles to the earth, sowing seeds he knows
will soon bear their red and gorgeous
fruit
my body speaks 