To My Grandfather

Your eyes are what I think about

and how even in the cracked gray photo

on my mother's dresser they twinkled

as if you were laughing at a joke that I cannot hear.

I was not even a glimmer in my father’s eyes 

when you were struck by a car 

as you stood quietly beside the old Roman road,

probably lighting your pipe.

I wonder what kind of father you were, and if you played

with your little children or if you were always working,

caring for the Highfields farm;

I think you must have been kind, 

for all your children had that way with them,

and Granny could not have loved a mean man.

Thin you were, a man of muscle and bone and twinkling eyes,

too early laid beneath a heart-shaped stone.

I stood by your grave and tried to conjure your image in my mind,

digging deep to find some part of you living on in me.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.