A poem for my Grandmother

 

 

Rest in Peace Bing, my paternal Grandmother, who passed away peacefully on Saturday just gone. I will always remember her at her happiest on the farm in the early morning. The gentle quiet and the birds. All my love.

 

 

Bright Day

 

The fantail is tying

loosely

a complex knot,

as if as an illustration,

about one spot

in the air

 

and then drawing it sharp;

yanked-tight

noose

on some frailer string –

the tangled line

in the sun

of a beetle, or other living thing;

 

throttling it.

It chops that end

short, and

this fantail, in its mantilla –

the swirling,

the blur –

goes off once more, taut; not far

 

Again, like some applause-igniting

artistry,

it flourishes a

variation

on that elaborate bow –

is adding, everywhere,

its satin

finishing touches to the morning.

 

 

~ Robert Gray, New & Selected Poems (1995)