For Grandpa

When young in shadowing years
Shocked fragments of stark broken toys
Had power to choke up stinging loss
Lent hot form in human tears
Cherubic youths accustomed not to truth
As oft erupt in bitter rage
Lifted faces creased as seeming justice
Snatches back unpromised gifts

Gazing on your deep lined face
Familiar sounds a haunting note
Fading in a minor key
To lull the twilight of your years
Though once the sandstone cloisters
Echoed out your purposed step
Beneath that furrowed, weary brow
There is a wilder, stranger music yet

Had I never felt your sagely look
And trusted unconditional your words
Lent gravitas beyond what scores
Of men could hope to wield
What I know of love would be
So ragged, incomplete
My debt is to a symphony
Dischordant yet recalled with joy

The toys of old are gone
Fast fades the poignant sting
Their loss once birthed in me
They seem as passing trifles now
Your final lesson I will remember ever
Oblivious though you were who taught
No man may enter that kingdom
Save as a little child

Children, never grow old

At last we find me

Deal not in pleasantries I

But gaze upon the void

You wetly mortal coil

Fallen boneful sack

Spoiled fat on promise

/

Creation offered

Judge me not who takes

/

Half-glimpsed delights are found

Up close to be but plywood sham

A groom lifts the veil

Finds an unknown haggard face

Redolent of someone

Something loved

Yet not

/

From arduous toil I half expected

Opening before such weary eyes

Vistas green and pleasant

To justify the trudge.

Even children know horizons are

Constant as birth and death

These children trick me with their truth

May they be seen not heard

Lest I

Hearing

See and hear

Know I am less than this outward

Bluff colossus choked with rust

All that could have been

That could have been

Is dust

/

Among these silent groves

Tranquility of nothing

Mocks the bombast swell of pride

My flings with Eve and idle play

At fair Pandora’s side Paid meagre

/

Still I count the cost of wasted toil

Cuts borne from all this being

Seem as lead beside those radiant scars

I would have sold it all

To know it had a meaning

Caring not one iota what

It was