The Sunday Poem: Grandmother is Forgetting

Some comfort lies in knowing
A tree’s inner core gilds a human wall,
And no one pays it mind —

I stared into her faded eyes, while willing
Into being a look not a reflection
Of my own. Her bones have been
Unlearning youth for years,
And dry rot clenches whispery hands
Around her veins. She feels oblivion,
Perhaps, and rooted fears to die —

And worse, the fear of being furnishing
For a mourner’s heart, a comfortable
Seat for sadness on display, a grief
Unlearned, replaced, reborn, beveled
By the familiar gaze of children wishing
For knowledge, continuation, and belief.

I pay her mind, in hopes that one will do
The same for me — ring me, round me, learn
And ground me, make me theirs, and never burn
The grains that build me, where they gild me
through and through.