Author Information
(for my grandmother)
Before the trussle was torn down,
And the train tracks slept silently on the ground,
Grammie and I walked down that way,
Side by side on a warm and lonely summer day.
"Don’t go past the apple tree if you’re alone,"
Said Grammie in her harsh, but loving tone.
"We’ll cross together you and I,
To see what’s on the other side."
Grammie didn’t like heights too much.
She preferred the ground and floor and such
Past the apple tree we strolled,
Searching out new terrain to unfold.
Onto the boards at a hasty pace,
To seek out new daisies and Queen Ann’s Lace.
You’d think I was scared; above the road so tall;
But I knew she’d never let me fall.
The other side just wasn’t bliss.
And the one we left, we came to miss.
Back we traveled to the side we know,
To catch grasshoppers and ladybugs too
Hand in hand we picked so many flowers,
Grammies voice did pass the hours-
Hours I would later come to know,
Their importance of my love and woe.
So many stories I would love to tell,
But I don’t know them as nearly well.
Grammie could recall everyone,
The awful, sad and the fun.
A day not as lonely as I thought before,
For now I have less and want so much more
Grammie had so much left to give
But God just wouldn’t let her live.
Dying in her hospital bed,
She took my hand and she said,
"One day you’ll find someone who’ll love you,
But not quite as much as I do."
Bit by bit these memories fade each night,
But it’s harder still to face the light,
Wondering if again I’ll ever see,
Grammie-now that she’s gone past the apple tree.
