Certainties

5 May 2008, 12:43 PM
Bernice Imogene Pope

I didn’t know I’d never go back.
Grandmother stood in her cotton dress,
Granddad in blue coveralls as always,
waving goodbye for the last time.

We learn to count on so few things.
Even those certainties don’t last. I know.
I understand, but am caught off guard
when an intangible familiarity in an unfamiliar
face joins inevitability with my passive
acceptance of the unrelenting passage of Time.

In the space of a moment, I lose Grandmother
once more. I know I will never sit with her
again at that pale yellow formica countertop
making biscuits at the crack of dawn,
and I can be certain of nothing else.