Vague recollections,
Of curio collections,
Salt and pepper shakers, unused
crystal ashtrays, reflecting rainbows
of northern prairie light on days bright.

A prairie girl, did you miss the place near the Arctic Circle,
your home?  Did Odin and Freya call you away from here to
there, or was Thor, or Loki the thunder in your angry voice
that I feared and may have hid under the steep basement
stairs, quietly in the dark hoping you were unaware.

Some of your children, and
your spouse, left before you did,
I know that was tough, and a shame.
You were tougher, though, you did
suffer in you aging frame.

I know you loved us all, I know you knew me too,
very early you said of me "he is a sensitive child", which
I have found to be all too true, many years after you have
gone I miss you, grandpa and dad, Audrey and Vic too.
Did you all find Valhalla at Heaven's Gate?

So I will not stir up the past, nor
will I hurry, through each day, for
I will remember, and smile at those
memories that brought me joy, prose
and rhyme not of a child, but a Viking man.

©DWE032013