Every day we'd sit
to the soothing voice
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes.
Now those happy little accidents
are gone far away from you,
so far, his 'fro
seems nothing more than
a bush on the side of the road.

Describing his wispy voice,
the gentle stroke of his brush
brings a vague smile,
but only just,
a mimic of the joy that comes
to my lips as I
reminisce,
selfishly
before you.

A child then,
I barely knew my colors;
yet you helped me
bloom a rainbow garden.
And when I knew my colors well,
you embraced the forests
I drew in blue,
the models of spacecraft
from distant worlds,
imagined by foreign minds.
I wept only once
in front of you,
a rare tantrum for a childish thing.
You cleared my tears
and left me beaming in my new
ballcap.

Older now,
I describe the colors to you;
you recall the meaning of two
or three.
Life has turned you
back into a child:
screaming outwardly,
weeping inwardly.
The things you know you should know
escape you,
things now beyond
your comprehension.
Decades upon decades
you experienced the magic
your fingers could bring to the
canvas of our lives.
The watercolors now bleed into
vague puddles of tan,
oils run thick and drip,
matting the carpet.
You tantrum against the loss
of yourself
as I dab your tears
and offer you the hat
of my memories
to sustain you through the fog
laid heavy around your head.

So I tell you the story
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes,
and we navigate this
not-so-happy little accident
that is you
lost on the last leg of your
life journey,
hoping my smile
will stay contagious to you
until that last step
that breaks the haze
and brings you home.

Please hold onto me Nana,
Hold on as long as you can.

I know it must be hard to trust me,
Since you don’t know who I am.

I want to help you remember,
However I am afraid it’s gone too far.

But I remember everything for us both,
From pinched cheeks to trips in the car.

You taught me how to be strong,
But right now I am not.

In a wide world full of people,
You’re really all I’ve got.

It’s hard to comes with,
As physically there’s nothing wrong.

Nana, it’s your mind that’s left us,
I fear it won’t come along.

We’ve got so much left to do,
I have so much left to say.

I wish I could protect you from the fog,
But it’s impossible for this to go my way.

Death hasn’t taken your body Nana,
He has kidnapped your memories.

He is cruel and unjustified,
I promise he’s making some enemies.

Please hold onto me Nana,
Hold on as long as you can.

I will love you forever and always,
But time is never outran.

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there, then burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For life remains undimmed in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book’s.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.

Keywords/Tags: Elderly, woman, grandmother, thin, thinning, hair, airy, emu, moult, soft, plumage, wrinkles, laugh lines, frail, gaunt, bones, winter, grave, eyes, courage, laughter, family, gathered, bedside, kisses, hugs, goodbyes, farewells, life, death, photo album, pictures, photos, photographs

Published by The Eclectic Muse, Love Me Knots (an anthology of the top 100 contemporary love poems), Nutty Stories (South Africa), Black Medina, The New Formalist, Better Than Starbucks, Potcake Chapbooks, Strange Roads, Sonnetto Poesia, Litera (UK), Poems About, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (in a Farsi translation by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian), Somewhere Along The Beaten Path (Anthology), Freshet, Life & Legends, Famous Poets & Poems, Short Quotes & Poems (listed in the top 10 short poems) and Victorian Violet Press. “See” won 3rd place in the 2003 Writer’s Digest Rhyming Poetry contest, out of over 18,000 overall entries, and was published in Writer’s Digest’s The Year’s Best Writing.

When time outruns the last of your brothers, and the heart of a golden generation turns into stone. Your strained bones long to rest among your loved ones, but you're unable to answer their call.
There's worry lingering in your thoughts and straining your soul. You fear for stories too precious to leave behind, vulnerable to the ruthless fires of oblivion.
So you keep clinging tiredly to an uncertain future. Desperately, you wonder for a shelter, a sanctum to all the lessons that must endure.

Let go of these fears grandmother. Your history will live on.

Through emblems, talismans and charms carved in the blood of our nation, your beliefs will be embedded in the symbols of our ancestors. Your teachings will clear the path for understanding, and our bodies will carry on the knowledge you left us.
Through legends, tales and chants all forged from truth, your morals will resonate among frozen hearts. Your hopes will breathe life into our dying spirits, and the wisdom of our ancestry will guide our nation for eternities.

Go in peace grandmother. Your wishes will live on.

As your never-fading love warms us, harmony and peace will unite us again, and we will reach together to the glory you once saught.
As your never-dying spirit inspires us, bravery and confidence will guide our conquests, and our triumphs await in the lands you dreamt of exploring.
And as the blessings of your ancestors protect us, we'll pass on the knowledge to our children, and enlighten the path you've once shown us.

So rest assured grandmother. Our culture will live on.

My Grandmother's perfume
was always as sweet as the fruit
she loved to share with me
its rinds thrown from the deck.
We watched as the deer came out
to feast on the skins.

Her perfume came
in beautiful crystal
and her collection spread
all over the bathroom.
She hummed as she got ready
her song beautiful like the hummingbirds
we would fill a feeder full of nectar for.
And as we ate at the small wooden table,
she would whisper,
"Look, my love! Our friends have arrived."
and the hummingbirds would sip from the feeder.
I always felt that they were her kin,
those hummingbirds.
But it would not be a stretch
for my Nana to be blood
with all the beautiful things.

She showed me how
to pluck a honeysuckle flower
and extract the nectar carefully
so I would taste a drop.
In the springtime,
butterflies would flock to that bush,
and we watched from a distance.

She taught me
where the daddy-longlegs liked to nest
and reminded me that they
were harmless.
I picked the wildflowers for her
and she would place the little arrangments
in water on the table.

My Nana would make me coffee
so sweet I could barely drink it
but I did
because the sweetness was just as sweet
as her.

I loved spending time with her,
even if it was just a phone call.
The number 2 pad on my mom's
ugly orange phone
was my Nana's speed dial.
I called her every day.
Every day.
She would light up when
she heard my voice
and I would chatter on about
anything and everything I could think of.

I still remember
the songs she used to sing to me
when it was time for bed
and I was wide awake.
"I love you,
a bushel and a peck.
A hug around the neck,
and a barrel and a heap
and I'm talking in my sleep
about you."

My Nana
doesn't remember the words now
but as long as I have
a voice to sing with,
I will sing for her.
As long as I have hands,
I will write for her.
And as long as I have a heart,
I will love her.
Even after the day,
she doesn't remember me.
Even after the day
she doesn't see my face
and know who I am.
Even after the day
she doesn't know she ever loved me.

She smiled
She made us laugh
She blessed us
And then
She went to the Lord