When the Grandchildren  Come to Visit

The minutes in the day become forgotten

like the one before you walk down the aisle

standing there with

your hand in your Dad’s arm

crooked like a delicate blue heron.

Would you like ice cream, you ask them, only so

you can see their round

small hopeful faces eyes closed

spoon grasped between thumb and forefinger,

the taste of sweet cream on their plump lips.

Let’s hide in the magic house where there are trains

hidden and a mat with tracks and round windows

like portholes out to the green and brown tales in the woods.

They think we are invisible and so we are.

Together you put tiny green wooden cows in train

cars and ferry them all over the rubber mat to Jersey

and Guernsey and your hippocampus.

Watch your grandson dive so deeply into the water

because he wants

you to watch and each time he

surfaces his eyes search for your joy in him.

My mother says store up your good memories

so you have them

to think of when you are dying.

I wouldn’t mind a slow death if I had more slow days

where the most important thing is to play marbles

on the grass or raise and lower a wooden bucket

filled with gravel.

Each time the same gravel, the same song, the same minute you will remember.