My Nan's Other World

I would hold my silence in the presence of that ‘away’ look on her face and wondered where she was, what land or dimension held her in its embrace. Seated in her chair, crochet rug across her lap or, on cold, bitter days, around her frail shoulders, her eyes would be fixed on something that was beyond a child's vision. She was elsewhere. I would wait, curled patiently at her feet until she returned to find me there, on the doorstep of this world, ready to welcome her back with love. Now her age, I too stare off into the same place, out to where this world begins to dissolve into a myriad of parts, each glittering in a firmament where even words flare like sparks, consumed on the edge of some ultimate meaning.