My Grandfather, as Defined by Francis William Bourdillon

Stephen D. Rabourn (1902 – 1996)

What I see in my grandfather

as he sits in front of reruns of old Lawrence Welk broadcasts,

believing the old bandleader to be still jazzing it up with the Lennon Sisters,

is nothing more than the remnant of a man’s life.

I went camping once with six other guys and one tent

when we just crashed after partying by a big fire following a concert.

The next time I let my dad drag me up to Kalkaska, I notice

my grandfather is the same whitish grey as the burned out log.

He rides next door to my uncle’s house on his lawnmower.

Sitting motionless, he is a bent statue of ancient clay

on a clunky old machine with barely enough power to conquer the gopher hills;

I wonder if he still has hopes beneath his cap.

Some decades ago he worked for the county road commission

but he retired before men ever walked on the moon,

so I suppose it’s fitting he was born before men ever flew in airplanes.

Is there such a thing as being too old?

I search my mind for scenes of my relationship with him,

but I can only call up the oft repeated “Happy Birthday Grandpa” story

no one wants to hear anymore and images of him meandering in his garden.

His life was already in storage before I knew him.

My dad was never a storyteller so I don’t clearly see

Scenes from pre- or post-war Kalkaska

except for the house, sitting on beams with bark still on them,

roofed with tar paper, and sided with shingles.

I heard the garage was once a beautiful kitchen.

My grandmother had left him for post-war Detroit,

a big man everyone called “Fitz,” when my dad was just ten.

My grandfather let his essence drain into the soil

with the water he put on his garden.

His shell simply continued, lacking the energy or will to live or die.

With little else to occupy my time on our bi-annual visits to nowhere,

I examined Petoskey stones and Red-cap moss and read the poem on the wall.

Poetry is sometimes too dense for a child, or maybe it’s the other way around;

I read that poem at least a hundred times

but it didn’t gain hold of my mind until I married.

“The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole world dies when love is done.”

--Francis William Bourdillon (b.1852)