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POEM: Little Grandma

Little Grandma


Dear Little Grandma

You are the oldest person in my memory
But my memory is a childhood thing

I remember your apron, and your bent-over walk
And the wrinkles in your face, and I remember
That you almost did not know how to say
Anything I knew how to say, except acceptance

I am almost seventy-seven, Little Grandma
And I want someone to remember what I remember
About what it was to be born somewhere else
And that I did not know the words to say
That I knew that, still not knowing how to say that

I think, maybe, that your were born before memory
Little Grandma, before you had an English name
And that Henrik, who had a Norwegian name
Before he became Little Grandpa, as you had a name
Before you became what I remember, had other secrets too
When you were Anna, before I remembered anything

I remember you and Little Grandpa walking
Down a gravel walk, almost planned, almost tended
From the little house under the apple trees
Next to the well, next to the half-buried cellar
Where the potatoes were kept in the dark
And where, when we could, we crept in to see
What we did not know the dark and cool reasons for

And Olina, among other children we never knew
Before Olina became Big Grandma.  Dear Big Grandma
With a bigger apron than yours, whose first child
Came with her from that old land we knew was ours
To marry and to die nearby, before we knew her at all
Because she was not Big Grandpa's daughter
But we called our cousins cousins, not because
We knew why, but because because they were ours
As we were theirs, somehow, on the gravel walk
Between the little house and the big house that was small

I remember Jonas, Big Grandpa, who became John,
Because we were supposed to pretend that we belonged
To an English-speaking tribe of Norwegian immigrants
Who taught us to pick up cowshit in a wheelbarrow
From the barnyard, partly for the people who came
And partly because the oats and the potatoes
Wanted what our shoes did not need to know

I am almost seventy-seven, Little Grandma
Grandma Olson, Anna Olson, and one day, perhaps soon
Perhaps a long way still, I will not remember you anymore
But together, with the others whose memories have come
The path under the apple trees, next to the well
We will weave together another apron in our stories
To reach back before we can remember anything

Little Grandma, I wonder if you ever sang an old song
From when you were young, remembering still older songs
Of the old country, when you were young, as I was
When you were old, and as our grandchildren are today

Sing, Little Grandma!  We almost hear you sing



--Conrad Røyksund
November 19, 2008

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