Eulogy by David Patteson

I love you Grandma.
I love you Grandpa.

I love your hands,
Leathered brown from
Years of plowing.
I love your palms,
Calloused from years of
Weeding and canning.

I love the syrup
Before milkin’ time
When the stars are still out,
And I love you waiting now,
With hoe and buckets,
In that promised place where
The air is a garden and
Our love the seeds.

I need to get back,
Not to the names engraved
On stones,
Not to the Harvest time revivals
But to the new, Spring soil.

That is all I want.
That is all I need.
That when I am lost,
The angel at your screen door
Will point to a couple in
The shade of the Maples,
Palms folded in their
Sunday gloves,
Boot toeing the soil,
And say, “There are some people
     yonder,
Waiting to meet you.”

David Patteson spent his childhood summers on his grandparents’ small dairy farm in Grassy Creek, NC. “They were the last of my generation with the ability to live entirely off the land,” he states. David recently published a graphic oral history, The Old Place, based upon their stories and tales. Other publications include Lingering in the Margins: A River City Poets Anthology; Zazu-Zine Comix; Ellipses Zine; Road Publishers: The Poet’s Domain; Mountain-ear Productions, and others. He and his wife have recently published a collection of short stories, art, and poetry about the road entitled If Roads Change Their Names . . .

Click the following to find Patteson’s books:

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**Featured image: Nikola-Duza, Unsplash