Every morning my grandfather comes down
the two-flight stairs and opens the door
to the kitchen where I am sitting eating
breakfast and he smiles and asks me a series
of questions that pertain to my existence.
Then he goes and fills the teapot
with tea leaves, spices, grains,
turns the hot water on and the day has begun;
though I have plunged into the Universe a thousand times
I do not tire of seeing him live
with the quiet magnificence of country folk
displaced into another place and time,
the geyser of the heart releasing waters
red as wine and deep as darkness,
our diffident mouths exceeding the rain,
our illustrious heritage of fire-wrapt bones
to be lost never again if we are emptied
by the Songs of the Abyss.
He is not tired.
I cannot speak, a tired man again,
never to be had.
12/01/2016
Richmond