Children of Children
after a line by Aleathia Drehmer
She looked on while one
cracked the eggs and
measured flour, and one tucked
candles into buttercream to light,
and then they sang for me—
daughter, daughter, wife.
I felt full without a bite.
Was 40 like this for you,
all those decades before?
Your wife and your son (my father
who fathered two in turn),
gathered about a glowing cake.
1964. Your chickens would have
given the eggs, your cows the cream.
You a farmer who had
come home from war,
married, raised my father, tilled
land many miles from here.
You are buried, now,
many miles from here.
I think of you anyway, how you always
touched the ground: feet planted or
hands in earth, solid and knowing,
certain of what you grew.