I'll Get There One Day

I'll Get There One Day

Poetry is those thoughts you can't say,

Those things you reserve for maudlin times,

When the booze cruises through your veins,

And you allow yourself to feel.

I listened as my grandfather talked.

Clark Martin, in his cups, on the frontside of a doctor's appointment.

His tone let me now that this was real.

This was important.

This was the end.

Sitting at a cheap-ass, white kitchen table,

smeared with ash and food,

not wiped off because of failing eyes.

Beer filled the glass,

oval shapes magnifying the amber liquid,

seeping into his failing body.

This was communion,

one generation saying goodbye to the latest.

This was my grandfather dying,

unable to say it,

he showed it to me.

He filled me with tales of his youth, imparting all that he could,

out of love,

out of fear,

out of respect.

He had the same from me.

The beer disappeared,

but the words solidified.

Seventy years of thoughts, all distilled into one evening

for a kid that had not yet hit twenty-one.

My girlfriend called, friends called, the night called,

but I knew I had to stay,

out of love,

out of fear,

out of respect.

In his eyes, I could see...

I could see that he wanted to stay,

that he wanted to say, "Fuck that doctor's appointment. We got shit to do."

But he went...

and he was gone...

in a month...

I'm still recovering from that... don't know that I ever will.