For her heart was pounding such <br />I thought it would leap from her chest <br />and fall flat onto the cold floor <br />to slide there to quivering extinction. <br /> <br />Her soul was shriveling such <br />that it twined and twisted upon a single thread- <br />its catchment snapping for the plunge into the river Styx. <br /> <br />Laid down in her cool night, <br />misted with early dew in her eyes <br />she grieved cold, cold upon cold; <br />her body shivering. <br /> <br />Vulture claws and talons reached <br />her Spiritual Keep <br />and sank their meanness deep <br />wounding the marrow <br />of where she lived- <br />all her treasures now exposed <br />and her Will raw-tested near impoverishment. <br />Grandmother cried. <br /> <br />Yet I saw her there over time repose <br />and recompose and thrust away <br />these encumberments; <br />the dreadful sight of a dead child-our mother, <br />birthed, she said from 72 hours labor- <br />and followed thereafter in days a husband dead <br />in cancer's clutch- <br />she sat alone, comfortless <br />as we children drew near in our bewilderment- <br />this sense of total demolishment shrouding all around. <br /> <br />Our eyes drew near; we could see <br />she began to shunt aside fear <br />transforming herself <br />from the Pity-Pyre to new resolve to live again <br />for the sake and betterment of us-the children. <br /> <br />Clear as the book and the page we could read <br />Grandmother began repairing heart and sinew, <br />face and spirit and like the phoenix bird <br />rises before us-new mission ensconced upon her clear. <br /> <br />Steel Purpose all in her she said: <br /> <br />'I shall be here children, no need to be afraid.' <br />This is what Grandmothers are for.'<br /><br />Lonnie Hicks<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-grandmother-2/
