Grandma

Every morning, looking out the window,
clad in a thread bare chenille house coat,
she watches.

She is an unseen companion to memory.
A diminutive figure stooped from ninety
years of life, of waiting. Yet she
stands there with a slight tremor
in her hands and watches.

Her thin legs coursed with purple veins
end in feet planted in terry cloth slippers,
they are the best she has.

From somewhere in her head shrouded
by a silver-grey cloud of hair,
visions of the past play in her mind.
A kaleidoscope of good times, youth, and love.
Feelings of joy and sadness.
A pantheon of life treasures.

Today she forgot her teeth but a smile is there,
on her lips and in her eyes.
Some might think her a fool smiling, never speaking.
Occasionally blinking or with her tongue
wetting thin cracked lips.

She leans closer to the window,
her slight breath leaves a fog of moisture on the pane.
She does not know that she has out lived
her man and her children. She was the one
that gave their home a heart. The truth for
her is that they are out there somewhere
playing or working.

And so, remembering, she watches,
waiting for their return home to her
and to the comfort of her love.

©2012, Donald Harbour