Monday, April 7, 2014

Poem a Day: 7

7.

Gods of Childhood

Grandma Tutu loved to travel. She took her camera
     around the world, exploring Antarctica, Easter Island,
the African savannah, sitting in Afghan tents, eating
     with her fingers in China, walking across the hills of Ireland
with a gnarly stick, smiling into Columbian winds as they
     filled her up with their caffeine.  At 85, she still
volunteered at a local hospital, cleaning bedpans, bringing
     daffodils to lonely rooms, sitting with patients her own age
or younger, passing the grounded hours.  I hear her
     laugh, I see her shining eyes under their mop of
gray hair, I smell her comfortable odors: sand and
     salt, a clean embrace like the San Diego sun
on our shoulders. We flocked to her from the South
     and the East, bringing our hidden skins and our
tired souls, offering ourselves to her for healing.

     When we visited, she brought out her famous pumpkin
bread, frozen just for such an occasion, her trademark
     spaghetti sauce.  She told stories about her trips, dressing
in costume after costume, putting on countries we’d
     never visit, flashing slides in the twilit patio while lightning
bugs crashed against the screens. I loved her simply,
     as a child, with wonder and awe: my father’s mother.  She was
magical--light and air and happiness. I thought
     she would never die.

In the dark, her eyes flashed behind their glasses, pure
     starlight, making her a goddess.  Grandpa Mac,
sitting on the couch in another room, yelled at the TV, threw
     his cracked hands in agitated arcs, cursed
the politicians and the bums.  His mind wandered into
     dark countries, seeking justice for the past, but his body
stayed put.  He sucked gin into himself, bloating with
     drunken memories, weighed down by hurts.

If Grandma was a goddess, then Grandpa was a god, an old-style
     patriarch, hoary head full of resentments and
smoldering hates. His cigars trailed orange eyes in the blue
     living room, wrote indecipherable notes in the lonely gloom.
He never traveled far. At Disneyland, he stayed
     in the car.  I thought he was rain clouds and mud and
bitter sadness. Even at eight, I knew how that tasted.
     One night, he turned to me and smiled, and wondered,
again, why he couldn’t die.


April 7, 2014

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