Willow

dear Gramma, we passed by the church

at Willow today and it was perfect

like you, I thought.

dear Gramma, we passed by the church

at Willow today and it was almost perfect

like you. I think of my dad

running in the big pines there,

a perfect Adirondak childhood.

But in the picture you took

he leans against the tree, scowling.

dear Gramma, we passed by the church

at Willow, he drove fast around a curve and —

“There! There is the church at Willow

where my grandfather used to preach.”

And I heard your voice telling the stories,

“In Willow, when your Aunt Ruth was young,

I couldn’t keep track of her.

We lived by a river and when she was two,

oh, she’d scare me so…”

When she grew up, she was the one to move away.

dear Gramma, the church at Willow is

small and sturdy and very white.

Like your hands that

picked blueberries on Blueberry Hill

and carried them back to the parish

to teach me to mix and roll the pie dough

in the late afternoon light. The flour

hung there like the dust in the road today.

dear Gramma, the church at Willow just appeared

like wintergreen lifesavers, so absolutely,

mouth-watering white, the ones

you’d pull from your purse to save us

squirming in our pews.

It didn’t seem quite right,

you secretly smiling, us sucking,

with Grampa up there talking to God.

dear Gramma, did you sing with your daughters

in the church at Willow

while Grampa caught trout?

Where was my father?

He came back to go fishing when

Grampa was eighty-eight.

He had to carry him onto the boat.

dear Gramma, there are no willows

near the church at Willow.

Only stiff, dark evergreens.

I drove by there today.

The church seemed dwarfed, a toy.

I have a note to add to Deb's poem for those who didn’t know our “dear Gramma” Zelda.

At her funeral the first two rows of the church were filled with her children and grandchildren. Midway through the service Aunt Joyce pulled out a roll of wintergreen life savers and handed them to the person next to her. That person took one with a knowing smile and handed them down to the next person. No word spoken, none needed. It took the better part of two rolls for everyone who had experienced Gramma’s love to take that communion.