Monday \u00a0December 9<\/p>\n
I forgot to leave a bounce back message on my email; \u00a0I’ll do that in a minute. \u00a0 A few days in western Nevada, \u00a0Carson City, where my sister and her family live. \u00a0A perfect time away from campus — lots of snow, lots of small mountains, lots of sun and ice. \u00a0 My neice Terri lives here too, with her husband and two small children. \u00a0 So I am picking another of her poems while she and her husband crank up for a work day in a high school here. \u00a0 It’s about being an observant child perceiving in her grandmother signs of frailty and diminishment all woven with beauty.<\/p>\n
I might miss some days if it gets lazy enough. \u00a0Back in Motown Friday<\/p>\n
Have a good week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Fear That Would Like to be Acknowledged<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Green tomatoes cluster on vines<\/p>\n small and swollen as grandmother\u2019s knuckles<\/p>\n knotted from clothespins and crosswords<\/p>\n curled into the shape of too much use.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The plants reach tall as my chin when<\/p>\n raised. From the same height, she surveys<\/p>\n ninety-four years of harvest and history:<\/p>\n the farms, lightening rods on every roof,<\/p>\n the brother who lay broken<\/p>\n beneath the tree he had climbed to<\/p>\n find apples for her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On shadowed branches, bunches of yellow<\/p>\n star-petals spread, slight as her thinning arms,<\/p>\n bright like her gaze for<\/p>\n grandchildren and guardian angels.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stems surge straight upward, lithe<\/p>\n with water, where her bones have brittled<\/p>\n and bent.\u00a0 But grandma has stubbornness on her side,<\/p>\n and her shrunken hunch encloses a life dense<\/p>\n with memories of fight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As autumn leans in, family gathers<\/p>\n to her age, listening carefully, testing her words<\/p>\n for ripeness or rot.\u00a0 From fear, her youngest grandchild<\/p>\n plucks and dries each sound, recording her stories<\/p>\n for the winter when blooms<\/p>\n become sparse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday \u00a0December 9 I forgot to leave a bounce back message on my email; \u00a0I’ll do that in a minute. \u00a0 A few days in western Nevada, \u00a0Carson City, where my sister and her family live. \u00a0A perfect time away … Continue reading