W.M.O.

Over Christmas Break, some friends and I went down to my grandmother's cabin in the swamp. As usual, the cabin's still breathing sweet memories of my many firsts as a kid.

My first swim in a river. My first deer. My first taste for home cooking. My first love for the family that I was with.

The more I go back, the more I miss it. It burns wondering about what my grandfather would have thought of the person I'm becoming. I'd just like to know how much more or less we'd laugh together. Personally, I feel like we'd be so much closer, and it almost made me angry that we aren't able to be.

But that's just me being selfish. He still lives on in that cabin, still swims out in Jones Creek, and loves more passionately than ever in the stories my grandmother shares about him.

Our God was so comforting with this during my last night of the trip when I couldn't fall asleep. I still love my grandfather, and I'm so happy the Lord lets us grow closer.


This is a poem I left in the creek where we scattered his ashes:

i find it difficult
sleeping in the house that
trembles at night
to the crack of a lion's roar

even though i've heard it said
that you ran around most nights
leaving bed sheets cool
and homes awry
with a print of absence

but wasn't it your hands
that carved this mantle
that hung this fixture
and talked to this pillow?

rather the thought of you
letting down tangles of
i love yous to your daughters
and desks covered with children
make shape for the mane i remember

whether you're here and hidden
or gone and poor riddance
the old annuals and
home with its tremors
again has me singing
the loved hymns you used to write

A Happy Birthday to My Dear Cousin

Sympathy for the Scientist


hold your summer fun
in teeth
only, you call them rivets
imagining the deflating rate
-the loss of a brother,
the combing of hair beginning to thin

remembering to never let it leave
any loss for your art
while knowing your brush
to always weigh even
with the matter that made it