Tobago, Last Day

Ten days alone with my grandchildren
for the first time. Their friends couldn't come,
they were disappointed, I wasn't.
On this last day together
we played in the pool, splashed
and invented games never known before.
They're ours now, silly, irreplaceable, part
of the stories we'll tell in the future.

I told them today that I can't do the dolphin kick
when I saw they can. Try this, Grandmother,
or this when they saw I till couldn't, or this. I'll show you,
I'll move your legs for you so you can feel it. Well,
you did one kick right, keep practicing, you'll get it.
It struck me that it's a gift to them to be bad at something
and they get to be the teachers. They admitted
they can't dive well and I could teach them.

We wrote poetry together and I learned
to let the poetry be about monsters when
I'd rather write about rain, and to listen better.
I wonder what their future will be, can't imagine it
really, it's theirs alone and indefinable.
I hold fear about it, about them in it,
about how to ready them, as if I could.
They're fine young people, they'll be fine adults.
That's their business, mine's to love them
and cheer them on. I do.


This is in response to Tashtoo over at dVerse Poets for Open Link Night who asks us to share our stories. This is mine this week.