Rachel, all your selections were incredibly touching for this (bittersweetly last) Maker Monday. Nye's and Kinnell's both sound like they're speaking directly to me at this point in my life, as I explore this newly unlocked artistic side of myself that I wouldn't have found without you. Thank you.
.
I say "thank you" "a lot, but I mean it, earnestly, yearningly."
.
Oliver's poem definitely helped coax out what's below, which is incredibly sad and happy at the same time. I shared it with some cousins (I don't have any siblings) that I shared this grandfather with, and they both said it brought him back more vividly in their memories than otherwise. For me, writing it down makes it less sad and more happy, like it's a small flame of his immortality. Thank you for helping me, and all the rest of the amazing Maker Monday participants, summon the words.
.
.
A Profound Kindness
.
La culcare, my Romanian grandfather would
say, to bed, in a tone between speaking and
singing, each vowel a hair longer than the last.
I'd feel his words, pulling me away from the
TV screen like a gentle, stern, permeable net.
.
In moments of particular difficulty, when I
feel like a slab of meat, pulled in impossibly
many directions, I remember his challenged,
resolved sigh. A quarter of me was this bold
and this loving; I know I can be the same.
.
If I could see him one more time, I'm not sure
what I would say or do, what I could say or do.
I could embrace him, and hear his loving and
excited inhalation, an inverse sigh, once more.
I am relieved its sound persists in my memory.
.
Even his accent depicted a man of profound
kindness, courage, and attention to detail.
Should I be so fortunate as to witness the
glory of grandchildren of my own, I imagine my
smile like his, warm and expressed with whole body.
.
I carry him with me, in memory, in genes, in
love. As the decades rush past, I understand
more of his sterner attributes and why they
are necessary and compassionate. This is a
certainty I am unlikely to part with.
.
I continue to imagine his eyes, learned and
reassuring, held securely beneath coarse
cliffs of salt and pepper eyebrows. Those
eyes saw me, and I continue to save a portion
of my experience for them, though they are no longer wet.
Rachel, all your selections were incredibly touching for this (bittersweetly last) Maker Monday. Nye's and Kinnell's both sound like they're speaking directly to me at this point in my life, as I explore this newly unlocked artistic side of myself that I wouldn't have found without you. Thank you.
.
I say "thank you" "a lot, but I mean it, earnestly, yearningly."
.
Oliver's poem definitely helped coax out what's below, which is incredibly sad and happy at the same time. I shared it with some cousins (I don't have any siblings) that I shared this grandfather with, and they both said it brought him back more vividly in their memories than otherwise. For me, writing it down makes it less sad and more happy, like it's a small flame of his immortality. Thank you for helping me, and all the rest of the amazing Maker Monday participants, summon the words.
.
.
A Profound Kindness
.
La culcare, my Romanian grandfather would
say, to bed, in a tone between speaking and
singing, each vowel a hair longer than the last.
I'd feel his words, pulling me away from the
TV screen like a gentle, stern, permeable net.
.
In moments of particular difficulty, when I
feel like a slab of meat, pulled in impossibly
many directions, I remember his challenged,
resolved sigh. A quarter of me was this bold
and this loving; I know I can be the same.
.
If I could see him one more time, I'm not sure
what I would say or do, what I could say or do.
I could embrace him, and hear his loving and
excited inhalation, an inverse sigh, once more.
I am relieved its sound persists in my memory.
.
Even his accent depicted a man of profound
kindness, courage, and attention to detail.
Should I be so fortunate as to witness the
glory of grandchildren of my own, I imagine my
smile like his, warm and expressed with whole body.
.
I carry him with me, in memory, in genes, in
love. As the decades rush past, I understand
more of his sterner attributes and why they
are necessary and compassionate. This is a
certainty I am unlikely to part with.
.
I continue to imagine his eyes, learned and
reassuring, held securely beneath coarse
cliffs of salt and pepper eyebrows. Those
eyes saw me, and I continue to save a portion
of my experience for them, though they are no longer wet.