Take a bunch of spinach, remove lower stems
from their fresh arrows, their heart-stab,
your grandmother dwelling in your heart
as you wash richness of green, fragility of leaf
and life and remember yesterday’s October day,
recall how you finally found her green grave,
her engraving beside the wrought iron fence,
how she overlooks the blue waters of her home,
how your granddaughter sat upon her gray stone,
laughing among all the gray stones, golden leaves
of the maple trees falling upon the graves
all around. Shake your tears from the bottom
of the colander. Open your window to the scents
of her kitchen, recollections of her egg coffee,
her rain-watered violets blooming in your garden.
