Sunday, September 21, 2014

Poetry Sunday


I love being a grandfather, and this poem by Olivia Stiffler sums up a lot of the bittersweet joy of that role in life ...

Grandchildren
by Olivia Stiffler

They disappear with friends
near age 11. We lose them
to baseball and tennis, garage
bands, slumber parties, stages
where they rehearse for the future,
ripen in a tangle of love knots.
With our artificial knees and hips
we move into the back seats
of their lives, obscure as dust
behind our wrinkles, and sigh
as we add the loss of them
to our growing list of the missing.

Sometimes they come back,
carting memories of sugar cookies
and sandy beaches, memories of how
we sided with them in their wars
with parents, sided with them
even as they slid out of our laps
into the arms of others.

Sometimes they come back
and hold onto our hands
as if they were the thin strings
of helium balloons
about to drift off.


Have a good day. Enjoy your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They're your most precious gift.


More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

5 comments:

Duckbutt said...

A very nice poem, true.

Meredith said...

I really enjoy my daughters; and try to have it so that they see both sets of grandparents when I go back to Mississippi.

Mike said...

2 months down, 10 years 10 months to go.

Banana Oil said...

I want to have grandkids for my parents!

Insane Penguin said...

It must be rough to be grandparents of teens too!