long hair around my neck
a red complexion
my grandfather would have never
approved of my predilection
for words instead of action
he stands in my memory so tall
white haired then and chiseled
face and faction
a man of Cherokee stance
and action, had markers and hates he stood
fast to, no other way to act he said,
kept Grandma pregnant
her whole life, until she had that attack,
and lay paralysed her last years of breathing,
then he kept up with her nurse,
and climbing pruning trees till he was 93.
He fell fast , one September,
like a limb he had pruned from an oak,
fell hard to the ground under
a hot sun, his whole life devoted
to family and heritage.
He might not approve of me, being so
magnamious in forgiveness.
It has to end some day, though.