Grandfather Seventy eight years is a good long time It seems to me looking on from my twenties And so here I am having just recieved the news Having not seen him since the diagnosis Off the phone with my father Thinking of my grandfather who s newly dead At peace or gone at the least who knows where The preist says that my grandfather leaves a legacy In the twenty three offspring gathered today In this little church with it s white plastered walls And water-beaded windows of Romans Apostles vines and cups Look up says the priest for there is Heaven and your father grandfather friend is there And I look look up through the windows And watch the clouds slowly disappate beneath The sun s beaming orb and the fields still wet And fertile and my grandfather and myself And the new spring shoots Fl x BL DE