Barbara Peckham Poet Free verse

Grandmother's Bed

In the darkness
I ran into my grandmother’s room 
And clambered up into
The high, four poster bed. 

	Comforted by the
imprint of her body, 
I lay there in the silence,
Straining to hear, listening 

In the moonlight, leaf shadows
played and danced across the ceiling
above my head. 
They whispered to me.

	They told me stories
	of strange places where 
	peculiar-shaped animals
	with limbs like tree branches

invented games with faeries and elves
and turned themselves
into strange and fearful beings.

In the distance a train whistle blew,
long and mournful, hollow,
like an empty stomach,
	
	making my bones shiver
	and my teeth ache.

In the air were words I couldn’t hear.
I could feel them blow
into my ears and form letters,
but I couldn’t understand 
		
Then my pillow was sweet smelling grass
under my head, and I watched
as clouds shifted shapes and murmured,
their breath like mist over my body.

Stars came out and the wind
told the voices to be quiet,
but the woman in the moon said “Shh”, 
and the stars and clouds melted away. 

The train whistle blew again in the distance
It was lonely and full of sadness,
and I cried, afraid,
afraid of knowing the sadness.

Now there are no leaf shadows,
Only the whispers passed into memory,
and, in the end, I understand 
and am no longer afraid.

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