For Emeline One Hundred Years Old
Tonight let us fill
our wineglass without fretting about the futures, which only
sours the Beaujolais. Forget tomorrow’s blueberries; eat todays.
Donald Hall
Camilla, Never Ask
Today you would have been one hundred
years old. Your hands and feet. Your
eyes. All of what you’d heard and smelled.
Your body and the blizzards and the scorch
the constant swell you settled by moving
all the time moving through the world
the way water moves through the world
the way you’d rise
from the night and
light a fire
and soon there are warm
biscuits and butter
and a cup of coffee
and the sun’s not even
up
Today you would have been one hundred
years old. You made three babies and they
made their own and some strayed
and some remained and the way was long
for all of them.
Today you would have been one hundred
years old and it’s giving rain. If you were
alive you’d take it like a skein of your favorite
yarn all knots on one end clear
for miles on the other. As it comes.
In your hands brief enough to make it
another row and another row and another
nothing coming undone. Mother grandmother
we cover our bodies with your body
with your hands and wrists with your garden
green beans your blueberries your soft cheek today
today you would have been one hundred!
One Hundred Years Old.!
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