A Snapshot Of Joan Buchanan Poem by Leah Ayliffe
A Snapshot Of Joan Buchanan
We've been waiting for this.
Me too.
But I'm all the way across the world,
and you're much further.
Inside I am lost and confused
with memories dancing around my heart and mind
like a haunting nightmare I can't awake from
Cinematic images from your world that don't belong to me
I'm keeping them safe for you
Laughing and crying at the kitchen table
One you've never ate at before
Though I remember yours well
filled with roast beef and yorkshire pudding
Sprinkled with holiday dreams
and butter icing in a bowl where I could dip my fingertips
I'd play my video games late into the night
Mario Party collecting the stars
and I feel the wind of a summer breeze
You'd give us chocolate milk
Putting on 'Beaches' for the millionth time
And every time I cried.
Did you ever know that you're my hero?
I think you must've been the wind beneath someone's wings.
Mini putt windmills
and swimming pools in Sandy Cove
Crossword puzzles with blue pens,
walking across roads.
a giant rock in the park
Sunny days spent at beaches on the fifth line
Long drives to South Carolina ocean shores
I dream of West Virginia horse rides
with you there in the background noise
I see shopping malls and purses
cigarettes and perfumes
I hear 'where's our lunch' with the pounding sound of a knife and fork
at California Pizza in Myrtle Beach
If nothing else I melt in the stories of your youth
Saturday nights dancing
dating men who turned out to be gay
being stalked by your would be husband
and eloping after 6 weeks of knowing each other
Only to return home keeping it a secret
What a romantic life it all sounds to me
I see movies of the cottage
my mom when she was just a kid
you still in your glory
Happy. I see happiness.
I see a lifetime of simplicity and beauty
and a hidden strength that kept you going on
You're so strong, no matter what you kept fighting
Even when we thought you'd give in...
You probably should have given in.
And I think it's best you go
Leave this world behind
and move on to something where you can find yourself again
Find your love waiting
in paradise so they say.
I feel so lost inside
but that's my own battle to face
because even now as I sit crying
I know you deserve to be in a more peaceful place.
I love you Grandma.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/26/2024 5:37:05 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Grandparents are a wonderful institution! You can have a relationship with them which doesn't have the vexed tension of that with parents, and you'll still be rooted in the family. Your poem expresses these positives with wonderful and detailed memories, some yours, some inherited, all illustrating the fulfillment you feel. I was swept along by the positive energy you display, this poem speaks to me, it has personal resonance. But it also works just as a poem, speaking as a long-time reader of poetry, this fulfills certain literary standards eg. there is an emotional restraint which lets me feel within, you don't take all the oxygen as the author. You do not rely on cliches or generalities. There are enough incidents and specific example to make a short narrative out of your poem. So both as an evocation of a beloved grandparent and as a poem this writing is wonderful.