Walking with My Delaware Grandfather

Walking home I feel a presence following
          and realize he is always there

that Native man with coal-black-hair who is
          my grandfather. In my first memories

he is present, mostly wordless,
          resident in the house where I was born.

My mother shows him the cleft in my chin
          identical to his. I am swaddled

and blinking in the kitchen light. So
          we are introduced. We never part.

Sometimes I forget he lodges in my house still
          the bone-house where my heart beats.

I carry his mother’s framework
          a sturdy structure. I learn his birthright.

I hear his mother’s teachings through
          what my mother said of her:

She kept a pot of stew on the stove
          all day for anyone to eat.

She never went to church but said
          you could be a good person anyway.

She fed hoboes during the ‘30s,
          her back porch a regular stop-over.

Every person has rights no matter
          what color. Be respectful.

This son of hers, my grandfather,
          still walks the streets with me.

Some twist of blood and heat still spark
          across the time bridge. Here, listen:

Air draws through these lungs made from his.
          His blood still pulses through this hand.
 

Copyright Credit: Denise Low, "Walking with My Delaware Grandfather" from Mélange Block. Copyright © 2014 by Denise Low.  Reprinted by permission of Denise Low.
Source: Mélange Block (Red Mountain Press, 2014)