GRAN

She takes my hand,

sits me down

outside the kitchen,

on the step

cool to the touch,

cracked and painted red.

Trees arch overhead;

she is with me.

Her old body is close to mind today.

I feel its softness,

its presence,

present to my childish hurt.

We are a community;

she enters into that space with me

and sits a while.

We can be here.

It is a good space.

“Look here,” she says.

It is a cup;

in it are two slender stalks,

two stalks with tufts,

feathery tufts on their ends.

The cup is full of water;

the water is blue.

She has coloured it

(today my favourite colour is blue).

“See,” she says,

and points.

The blue is moving up the stalks.

They were white;

now they are blue.

I am enchanted.

She has made magic;

she has made magic for me.

Dry tears still sting my eyes.

It is tender;

I and this moment and this woman are all tender,

and the blue is still rising

‘til the tufts are full of it

and I am full too.

I am full;

She has filled me.