when the moon was full,
grandpa and I would stay in town past sunset
the road home good, with few ruts, the pastures soft
silver in all that lunar light

his team was old, slow,
but grandpa knew no haste
even getting to the cellar, when
great twisters came

born the week Lincoln freed the slaves
he not once drove a car, though he lived
to read of Sputnik in the Gazette,
and died when JFK was elected

summers lasted a long time
with grandpa--I still see him. giving reins
a gentle shake, reminding his horses to pull us home
whistling to them, telling me tales

on a July night, the year of the Crash
he put his gaze on the fat orb, barely waning
“one day we'll put a man up there,” he proclaimed
but I thought he was pulling my leg

“have to put him in a cannon like,
enclosed in some hard shell, otherwise
we’d blow him all to hell, gettin' enough power
to loose the bounds of God's earth”

grandpa didn't live to hear Neil's famous words,
two score years after that summer night; though I yet hear the shod
hooves plodding, the wagon wheels rolling, and his words
soothsaying, whenever I gaze at a white moon’s face