My grandfather was a noble man
With a poet’s heart and a farmer’s hands;
He tilled the earth but he could turn a phrase gracefully.
He was a mender of fences, a tender of herds,
With a love for the land and a great love for words.
I loved the things he knew
About the way things grew;
And I grew to love my grandpa’s poetry.
He knew the words of Walt Whitman, Sandburg, and Frost,
The lessons found in Paradise Lost;
The poems Grandpa wrote himself meant the most to me.
His favorite book, the one he most often read,
Was that big King James Bible he kept by his bed.
He’d read to Grandma and me
Then he’d pray on his knees;
And prayer was a part of my grandpa’s poetry.
But he fell in his time and sat in his chair
And recited poems to the bedroom air.
His mind flew away like a sparrow through the trees,
And only God understood my grandpa’s poetry.
Now the four-lane road cuts across the land
And there’s nobody left who works with his hands;
The fields of the farm fade in my memory.
But I wish things could be like they were long ago
And I wish I knew now what Grandpa used to know.
And when the night wind blows free
Through the broken oak tree,
I wish I could still hear my grandpa’s poetry.
