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Hedwig


Her house, a memory lane of sacred spaces:
the cobwebbed attic travel trunks, 
high heeled shoes, pink taffeta gowns, 
skirts that open into spinning parasols, 
cool musty wine cellars lined with dusty bulbs 
and oak barrels, 
that hay loft for hibernating tortoises, 
a courtyard of bursting wine caskets
that clutch Oleanders, Angel Trumpets, 
palms and roses, 
the outhouse under a giant mulberry 
staining visitors fuscia red, 
a library of leather-bound, five-pound encyclopedias, 
and the bucolic world of firefly adventures.

In the grand silence of hundred-year-old oak trees 
and the coo-coo-roos of pigeon chit-chat, 
with a tin can in my hand, 
I skedaddle to a spigot for cool off and fill up.
We snip the dead-heads off Hydrengea, Dhalia 
and Sweet William at a baby’s grave, 
to spur new blossoms 
as we douse the thirsty mound.

Her dentures in a glass of water, 
the hum-whistle-wisp of her tunes 
fades in and out as she busies about, 
with twisted digits brandished like radish knuckles, 
and feather-light fuzzy hair floating about.
I taste paper-thin cuts of a salty sausage, 
her hand-stretched strudel dough, 
rolled with poppy and apple, cooling on terrazzo floors, 
whipped egg whites and yolks that sweeten afternoons, 
a mulberry syrup soda fizz tickles my nose,
Bouillon de fairne of onion, garlic and bacon fat, 
her stock of soups with mile-long noodles, 
steamed dumplings with jam, butter and powdered sugar.

Waste-not, what-not, want-not, never-ever-have-not.

My throat constricts for days 
as summer in her wonderland ends.
After long goodbyes, tears waterfall, erupting 
for three hundred kilometers. 

She is the ordinary made unforgettable, 
the builder of a scaffold to my heart.
This is how I carry you, grandmother.

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