Special
Notes: This poem is written in loving memory of my
grandfather,
Daniel
Wilson "Uncle Son" Clayton, and his cat,
Morris.
This
poem is a sestina, a highly structured and complex
type
of
French form poetry that dates back to the twelfth
century.
The poem
contains 39 lines and follows this structure:
Six
stanzas with six lines, followed by a three-line stanza at the
end.
Each
line ends with the same six words,
only
placed on a different line each time in this order: f, a, e, b, d,
c.
The same
six words appear in the concluding three-line stanza, two in each
line.
Sound
confusing? *L* Try writing one. This took me eighteen hours to
write.
Granddad
He sits
in his chair on his front porch beginning early every
morning.
For
years he has sat on his porch with his chair tilted back. He props his
feet,
erasing
the ridges and smoothing a satiny place where he rests them on a
post.
The
cracks between the hand-hewn logs of his home mirror the laugh lines
worn
into his
face. He has seen a lot in his lifetime, but his eyes still sparkle a
bright blue,
alert as they were fifty years ago. He sits in his chair and
waits for the world to come to him, watching.
Everyone
calls him Uncle Son. All the neighbors feel safe because they know he is
watching
He
pauses for a pinch of CCC snuff, the first this
morning.
He is
friends with all of the farmers, and he waves at Mr. Tince, hearing Ol'
Blue's
bark as
they pass by in their battered pickup truck. He finally slips shoes on his
feet
for his daily trek. His pale, soft skin used to be like
those farmers', leathery and worn.
But now, instead of worrying about mules and plows, he worries
over getting his letters in the day's post.
He
leaves a painstakingly written note that says "Stamps please" for the
post-
man and
the money to pay for the stamps. He ambles to the road,
watching
carefully where he treads to avoid fire ant hills. He pulls
up the faded red flag on the mailbox, worn
a light
pink by the hot sun. He also scans the sky, searching for grey, his
morning
routine
never varying. He has traveled this path so often he knows how many
feet
lie between the house and the mailbox. He pulls his hat low
to shade his eyes against the glaring blue.
He heads
into the kitchen to cook a bite of dinner. He opens the old
blue
pie safe
and takes out a bowl, mixing eggs, cornmeal, and buttermilk. Then he takes his
post
at the
stove. He shifts back and forth, sliding his bare
feet
over the brown tiles. The grease sizzles in the frying
pan. He drops spoonfuls of dough in,
watching
as
it crisps and becomes golden-brown. He takes one up and breaks it open,
testing the morning's
meal to see if it's done. Satisfied, he sits in a chair that
used to be green, flecks of the paint now worn
away. The ruts in the floor are deep, caused by years of chairs
being scraped, worn
grooves
in the brown tiles. He eats his corncakes and heads back out, the
blue
glare of
the sky blinding him for a moment. He is done in from his activities of
the morning.
And
decides a nap might be called for. He angles his chair into place and
resumes his post.
The whir
and buzz of insects lulls him to sleep. The ragged yellow tomcat slinks
up, watching
carefully, believing himself to be a mighty predator. He pauses,
extending his claws from the pink pads of his
feet
and sharpens them on the doorjamb. Uncle Son's toes twitch
as yellow flies buzz around his feet
and he
startles, his eyes flying open. His fingers search for a toothpick in the
pocket of his worn
shirt. Victorious, he sticks the sliver of wood between his lips,
and resumes watching
the
comings and goings on his dirt road. As the sun inches its way across the
blinding blue
sky, his
head nods and he dozes again, snoring lightly. His heels slide down the
post
as he
dreams. He is taken back to the past, to his youth and to other
mornings.
He is a
part of that porch, with his bare feet and his sparkling
blue
eyes. For years he has worn the wood away on that
post,
Every
day he is on guard, watching, starting early in the
morning.
This is
me and my grandfather, on the steps of the porch I wrote
about.
His hand
is on the post that his feet wore smooth.
 
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