My grandmother,
Esther,
survived
the Depression,
& passed me
knowledge
under a punishing
summer swelter,
as she took
my hand with one,
& carried in
her other
our blanket,
& a wore-out
paper lunch bag
of last night’s dinner,
which we ate
at Roxbury’s
Blackstone Park,
tucked under
weeping-willow-shade,
filling ourselves
by reading
shape-shifting clouds
that passed slow
under God’s blessed sky.
