Voice From The Future Poem by Patti Masterman

There's a voice that sometimes knows the future
It can speak up without warning
Like the colorful fall day we took my grandparents to get groceries
Somehow Grandpa managed to exit the car
He appeared on the back porch before I realized it
I always made a point of hugging and kissing them both
When we parted. But the timing was off.

He stood on the porch and waved, with a little smile,
As if to say, next time- next time we'll hug.
As I raised my hand to wave back, the long sleeping voice woke up
I don't know where it came from, but I heard it say clearly:
You're never going to see him alive again. I was full of wonder.
But he was so real and full of flesh and blood right before me
I wish now I'd run around to the porch and hugged him anyway.

It was curious, but I said nothing; I was in mid-adolescence then.
Two days later on the weekend, I had an all night dream
About his death and his absence; fierce grieving in my sleep
A few days later, arriving home from school,
I found the house locked. My mother had gotten the call,
Rushed over to his house to find him already gone.

Later I reflected the dream told me as much:
The front door of the house had opened, and six men
Came out, carrying his coffin
He was already dead, as the voice had promised
I had grieved so much in my dream, my tears were dried up
He wasn't sick before his death. I never remembered voice or dream
For two weeks: the tracheotomy stain on the carpet
Was transfixing- where his life was already draining away.

Then I remembered a story my mother told me
Once upon a childhood, I had cried all the way home
From my grandparents house. Seems I had forgotten
To kiss Grandpa goodbye. In some versions,
She said she had to turn the car around and take me back
Because my tears were cascading so copiously
That last day when I missed goodbyes, I was too old to cry
But as a child, pride never blocked my vision.