Rise, Grandma Poem by Michelle Claus

Once plump, hard-boned, and ruddy in the cheek
Capable of casting dinner plates
Across a room in fiery fits of rage
Today you strain to stand, your pallid flesh
Melting on a twig of skeleton.
Your passion-flames and blazing vim are fast
Giving way to hoary dust and ash.

Once lithe, quick-paced, and nimble with your hands
Capable of quilting beds, painting scenes
Transforming tiny beads to bright bouquets
Today you quiver uncontrollably
Can barely scratch your signature. Cramped
Curled fingers reach for me, attempt
To snatch my still-hot youth and vigor.

But I refuse to let such withered proof
Replace the truth of you - the vital Mind
That taught me how to eye this finite world
Peripherally, to gaze within and high
To flat deny material. Embrace
The realm of Good and Real, you said. So no,
I will not see your daily atrophy.

Rise, Grandma, walk with me a while
Recount again just how you found the Meta-
Physic life, recall the lessons learned
Renounce your current strife. Then free your jaw-
Wide, fire-eyed, belly-thrusting roar
And please, invoke the very words you swore -
Those time-defying embers burning still

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