Child Games

                        I
It was our manic child games
that added the years he sometimes attributed
to the alpine meadows and green vales
he came across working in a brewery.

Always the older one at holidays,
our late fall visits, always the center
of family group portraits, he was content
with the youthful antics that
affirmed a vaguely cyclic journey.

And he could steal your nose
or warn of what lurked
in the cellar’s blackness,
all the while the others
tending toward his age
guarded their precious peace,
preferring to set a bountiful table.

                        II
At Calvary he cut back the dead growth,
the chrysanthemums of spring, that never
threatened to obscure his brother-in-law’s
granite marker.
     The dead man had fallen at Capporetto, fighting for the Austrians
     —shot through the neck—but had gotten up, and lingered in reasonable
     health for fifty-odd years.
Our transplanted energies frolicked among the tombstones; he went on
pruning, trimming, dutifully blending intention with sweet reverence
taking care not to cut a memory too short.
It was too honest to be ritual.

                        III
During our autumn visits
my milk-softened coffee
always awaited me.
I never arose early enough
to waken my grandfather;
sometimes old people never sleep.