A Profound Kindness

a prose-adjacent piece about my grandfather

A Profound Kindness

La culcare, my Romanian grandfather would
say, to bed, in a tone between speaking and
singing, each vowel a hair longer than the last.
I'd feel his words, pulling me away from the TV
screen like a gentle, stern, permeable net.

In moments of particular difficulty, when I
feel like a slab of meat, pulled in impossibly
many directions, I remember his challenged,
resolved sigh. A quarter of me was this bold
and this loving; I know I can be the same.

If I could see him one more time, I'm not sure
what I would say or do, what I could say or do.
I might embrace him, and hear his loving and
excited inhalation, an inverse sigh, once more.
I am relieved its sound persists in my memory.

Even his accent depicted a man of profound
kindness, courage, and attention to detail.
Should I be so fortunate as to witness the glory
of grandchildren of my own, I imagine my smile
like his, warm and expressed with whole body.

I carry him with me, in memory, in genes, in
love. As the decades rush past, I understand
more of his sterner attributes and why they
are necessary and compassionate. This is
a certainty I am unlikely to part with.

I continue to imagine his eyes, learned and
reassuring, held securely beneath coarse cliffs
of salt and pepper eyebrows. Those eyes saw me,
and I continue to save a portion of my experience
for them, though they are no longer wet.

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This poem originated from this poetry prompt journey.

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