No More Calico Hats

The father stands
looking across the bricks toward the misty gully
for a split second each forgets the other.
They dream of yesterday.
Grandmother smiles.

She wears a handmade flour sack apron
with beans piled high as a cat’s back.
A beagle sleeps on the front porch
next to her.
Grandmother smiles.

She wears a calico hat
protecting her face from the hot sun.
Eyes like purple pansies growing in a spring garden,
she leans back in a rocker remembering dad as a boy.
Grandmother smiles.

September she faces what we all do, alone.
Is it dark and cold or is light and warm?
Her last earthly vision was of sleeping under a beech tree.
She is gone to meet her ancestors.
Grandmother smiles.

©Joyce Meyer, 11/07/2008