Remembering Grandfather Poem by Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot

He gathers us to his throne-
in a dirty kitchen my memory
summons as a perpetual campfire
In the world’s largest pot,
pig food is cooking. As always.

My brothers and I sit down
in front of a newly-built fire,
bright flickers dancing in mid air
just above it, like fireflies emerging from
their secret empire after dusk gets duskier
We savor the summer rain’s generous gift
of sweet corn Allapo grilled over charcoal
He tells us stories of a deprived childhood
and of a fair maiden born of privilege
How their disparate backgrounds drove
an impenetrable wedge between them,
He had to leave, his final memory of her
in tears, silently grieving their divorce
He marched barefoot to the direction of
Dreamland where- as he heard-
broken hearts could be pieced together
A miracle to him if it were to happen-
He thought then. It never did.

He learned to read and write – the price to
pay for a small taste of prosperity
Armed with the rudiments of ABC and 1-2-3,
he scaled heights and settled in the land beyond
the framework of his ancestors’ imagination

Now his handsome face is wrinkled by time
And his gait is slowed down by years of labor
He exhorts his grandchildren to master
the ABC’s and learn to count
“For your generation and those of the fruit of
your loins will gather their food not from the
Earth but from pen and paper, ” he says like
a confident prophet whose visions have come true
His words do not sink in to minds born only yesterday
We just delight in listening to him and watching
his habit of rubbing his hand over his aquiline nose
Nature did not paste on our faces
For perhaps we could not carry it with grace
as we do the small ones She saw fit to bestow on us
Nothing in the world is quite as festive as gathering
around a fire, gobbling up corn that never runs out,
listening to Allapo recall his dark nights and bright days

He is now in the Great Beyond.
I hold a pen and scribble it on paper
for my next meal and those of my children
There is a presence in the room,
In my mind’s eye, I see a wrinkled face
made more handsome by an encouraging
smile, watching me

And I keep writing.