this week, my grandfather turns 78,
another ring on the tree, creaking
it’s only been these past few years
that I could hear the wind
I forget that time continued, even
as I felt suspended in the grey
of young adulthood, these milestones
unpredictable and intangible
the drinking age, a legal vote
I forget that time grows heavier
he is still as quiet as I remember him
like my grandmother is still as busy
blue in the corner and orange in the kitchen
what kind of smile I want today
he still likes the kind of jokes-
longform, drawn out, the kind
you work for, work towards, the kind
that takes a special patience
a patience I have never had
and he still likes to describe a meal
if it arrested his mind, sitting there
in his brown leather chair
my grandfather is a full watercolor palette
I watch him gently touch the edge
of my paintings, and turn them
towards his friends, towards the light
and I know, at least, the most important
in May, my grandmother will turn 78
coming up on her husband, and
I can see the way her hands ache
her hair has been a mute gingersnap auburn
recall how old I was, but
I went to her salon, once, and watched them
bring it back to a sunshine penny
she likes the way plants curve towards the sky
telling me all the ways a bud may bloom
she likes to know that those she loves
like a music box ticking, always thinking
of ways to give us all a calmer breath
she cooks like I cook, like the way she taught me
to measure once and throw things in on good faith
that your hands will guide you
and your experience will find you
something new, and bright, and
she loves seashells on ceramics,
the oak leaves crunching on the path while she walks
and there’s no way to slow her down
(though her younger sister walks faster
for every inch taller my grandmother grew)
and I still have the note she wrote me
taped to a rock on my bedroom shelf
in looping, ink-stained handwriting
my other grandfather celebrates in June
when the morning sun dries my hair too quick
and the hills are turning gold on the drive
when I was eleven, he tried his best
to mold red clay into a bowl
I was unmade on the excitement of creation
and his hands were as fragile as the ropes of earth
when my bowl grew too hot, broke apart
he offered his, and I filled it with a coin
for every time I watch his eyebrows rise in laughter
I know the way they build the bridges
and the way they harness the sea
I know the way the roads lead to Rome, and
the way those roads all lead back to me, because
with a blue striped button up and a worn out belt
I sat on the bus with him
and he spoke with the voice of every steel beam
and I remember being seventeen, with my
hair tied back, two days past a shower
stuck at home, phone in my hand
listening to him talk from the ICU in a voice like fallen wheat
left behind by the careless thresher
he told me three secrets to the periodic table, and
he told me three ways to fail geology class, and
he told me three times he thought he’d discovered fire,
before he told me he loved me as he hung up the phone
his wife, my Linda, is an August birthday
and this year she will know seventy decades
on an earth it seems she is most
I love art museums two times out of one-
when I see them through my eyes, and then
my grandfather sits on the bench in the gift shop,
while we walk arm in arm, and she tells me
the flowers in that painting are just bright enough
and the woman who painted this could see the future, it seems,
this modern art installment escapes my good taste
she has an opinion on almost everything
being young, being buoyed on the fact
that she still wanted to hear mine too
and when I was half her size, she taught me
the way your legs swing back and forth on the playground
I know the way her hands shelve books carefully, and
the way she raises her hands in triumphant fists
cheering her grandchildren on, on a rickety lawn chair
just this side of the chalk sports field line
I know the way she arranges berries in a bowl of yogurt, the way
we made stir fry together, the way
she read me fairy tales about the girl with the blue bull,
the girl with the nettle ointment,
the girl with ashen bones who fought the world
I still know the taste of the ginger peach tea
sitting on her back porch as she told me
my youngest grandmother is a September baby
born in Autumn when the California earth is still hot
and the leaves start to turn
I remember my Oma like a string of music notes, I-
remember her hands over mine
stretching just far enough to tap the ivory keys
where I couldn’t quite reach
sitting in the front row of my recital
she likes the salt air on the deck of Phil’s
and she likes it when women stand strong
she liked to show me the ways science could take me
and the smile on her face the day we met Sally Ride
is burned onto the back of my brain
I remember sitting in the back yard
as my brother and I turned the crank
of the old wooden ice cream machine
like I know the click of her camera shutter, like
I know the tap of her foot to a beat, like
I know the way she still hugged me the same
even when I grew taller than her eyes
I know her frustrated huff prying my hackysack
out of the jaws of a golden retriever
like I know how much she loves the WNBA
like I know that she fought
(fought, fights, and and will still-)
like I know that, blood or not,
her roots are still tangled with mine, and
I remember never knowing why
anyone might say she was less my grandmother
than any of the three other
like I know how hard she tried
to make sure I might never have to understand
that I might only be myself
and then my Nana, in December
with pink coconut cake and sweet marzipan
she is always trying, the same way
to hold all those around her up
I spent every Wednesday for a decade
in the backseat of her car
with a juice and a running river mouth
listening to her classical music station
she’s always taller than I remember
running her finger around the rim of a wine glass
and laughing, startled, when it shrieks
she printed out five paintings I put online,
and five more poems of mine
and I remember drinking lemonade on her linoleum
the way her dog scrabbled on the carpet
I remember the first time she put a paintbrush in my hand
she loves sweet flavors and special occasions
(excuses to make other people smile)
the way an iris blooms in spring
pink lemonade in a tall glass, and
I learned what the face of true appreciation
when she could find something lovely in
a five nickel school play
or a broadway musical making millions on the stage
back when I could eat walnuts, she gave me
turkish delight, getting powder
on the back seat of her car
she laughed the same laugh then that she did
when she tasted pineapple on Maui
stepping foot on the islands for the first time
and no matter how solid she seems,
the smallest of triumphs on the big screen,
and I recall- we walked among the sculptures in the MOMA,
your painting on this wall
I don’t know what I will say-
when there comes a day, there always
comes a day, when the forest
finds itself missing its tallest tree
and I did not think, until I watched
that as much as we can be silent, in this family
as much as we can be slow-
to speak like bared branches in the winter,
perhaps they did not know
well, I know my spine grew crooked
and I know my growing pains came late
I know my face looks like my father’s
and my heart doesn’t look like much at all
but I do not think that life without them
would have seen me be this tall
I forget how fast time flies
I forget the way gravity arrests us, the way
I forget that they can’t hear
but I think this is my promise
