Granny

It's my grandmother's 97th birthday.  She was a professional artist/painter, also a poet and a life-long hell-raiser who had lived multiple lives on three continents (and visited five).  We were very close,  soul-mates, best friends.  She has been suffering from dementia (and some other physical ailments) for about a decade.  Witnessing and grappling with this transformation from who she was to who she is now has been profound for me and I write about her all the time.  So here are three poems about my Granny.  (The first two can be found in my chapbook!)

This first one was written before she went into an assisted living home (maybe 8 years ago?) and I worried about her safety all the time.  It is inspired by a poem we read together called Burnings by her friend Jeffery Beam (who is an awesome poet!)

Fire Poem 

Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
while in silence
I watch my favorite person die.
Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
when polite conversation cannot describe this.
Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
when the end should be swift
as the stroke of a match
and not a lingering smoke
suffocating slowly
as indignities stack
and independence
smolders away
in the ash of the skin
that no longer heals.
Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
when I tell you her life
was a blaze
a storm of exotic fireworks
a happy birthday candle
a wild ember glittering
in the African bush
untamed.
Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
when her loneliness
bubbles like volcanoes
when frustration
blisters her palms
and I am a useless 600 miles away -
Don’t mind a bonfire of my words
when there is nothing I can say
and all I’ve got
is the waiting
and the love
and the fire
fire
fire
fire
fire.

This second poem was written around the same time, maybe on the same visit.

 Short Poem

You say you’re
short of breath
I hear it
shallow clipping
in your slender chest
“I’m afraid
I’m feeling my age
now for the first time”
you say again.
We read short poems.
You say you like mine better.
Plane tickets are an act of faith
and love
Oh Granny,
short of breath!

This last one I wrote a year ago, visiting her in the assisted living home where (on a good day) she knows I'm a Heather and that a Heather is a good thing but not that I'm her grandaughter or that I live in New York or really much of anything that's going on around her.

Prism Poem

Visiting granny
through prisms of poetry
cut by shards
of darkness and light
in shadows
a feral retreat
a whispered decline
then all is bright
the glint of a smile
I remember, adore
we shimmer
two hearts break
so gently we can only
dance
in love
in pain 
in memories
dancing together
to time signatures
at once too slow
and much too fast.