The Dirt Road Laughed

to think of granddad is to relish memories of summer days and nights in his farm by a creek, near a hidden, rainbow-haloed waterfall. there, before I learned to tie my shoelace, he taught me how to fish, to catch crabs and shrimps under mossy rocks, and make a kite, fly it while astride a carabao, whistle at the wind, coax it to lift higher, nearer the clouds that jewel of my string; taught me to play and sing with a ukelele, to say age-old prayers at the darkening dusk, and listen to ancestral poems at dawn. at summer's end, our carefree whistling, jokes, laughter, and hike to the station were enough, for indeed, to walk with my granddad ... was to hear the dirt road laugh !