Prisms

My mother sits at the far end of a dock her fingers tapping
Rhythmically to a tune only I cannot hear
The red flower on her straw hat and the gold
Of her bracelet barely visible the evening
Stretches out to the child
And envelops his comprehension in a shroud.

Now grown, I see this image live, suspended on a fragile web,
But anchored in the nascent light of a late summer morning.
The flower and bracelet brilliant. The woman vital.
Yet with one fell footstep, she dissolves,
As if to say the sun were false
And the memory merely mocking its own evanescence.

Inter

As I let go of the thin handful of dirt
To drop with a dark and final silence
I mumble a short prayer, without conviction.

What departs with my grandfather
This damp November day in Providence
Is the last memory of his father's father

Long since committed to a Pennsylvania hillside
Stillborn son and wife abreast
Three cold stones I touched once as a child.

Next to me, my sister turns up the collar
Of her gray wool coat. A pair of nearby finches,
Stir the wet leaves brown under a lone oak.

And I imagine my great-great grandchildren
Themselves senseless and scattered
Might have words to make a memory warm.