09-09-2023, 01:07 PM
The Third & Fourth Generation
~Numbers 14:18
Grandpa drove north in early summer,
never calling ahead.
He'd surprise us with late evening arrival,
expecting dinner.
Mom would make him another—
that's how she was raised.
His dad left him without any warning
when he was seven.
His grandmother fed him without complaint—
that's how she was raised.
His grandfather's closest friend was opium.
They bonded during the civil war
over rifle fire and a shattered leg
that never fully healed.
They swapped war stories in silence
of the departed who wouldn't die.
It vanished in 1906,
pulled from the drug store's shelves.
He wept to his wife too many times,
and she told him, "Just go ahead
and do it already."
Grandpa found him the next morning
hanging by his neck from a cross-beam in the barn.
Grandpa would start wearing sweaters
the last week of August.
My brother and I would wake unaware
to a crisp, windy morning—
mom's face left behind to tell us
that he drove south during the night.
~Numbers 14:18
Grandpa drove north in early summer,
never calling ahead.
He'd surprise us with late evening arrival,
expecting dinner.
Mom would make him another—
that's how she was raised.
His dad left him without any warning
when he was seven.
His grandmother fed him without complaint—
that's how she was raised.
His grandfather's closest friend was opium.
They bonded during the civil war
over rifle fire and a shattered leg
that never fully healed.
They swapped war stories in silence
of the departed who wouldn't die.
It vanished in 1906,
pulled from the drug store's shelves.
He wept to his wife too many times,
and she told him, "Just go ahead
and do it already."
Grandpa found him the next morning
hanging by his neck from a cross-beam in the barn.
Grandpa would start wearing sweaters
the last week of August.
My brother and I would wake unaware
to a crisp, windy morning—
mom's face left behind to tell us
that he drove south during the night.
