the room where my grandmother slept...

I never entered the room
where my grandmother slept,
the room at the top of the stairs.

I never entered the room
where my grandmother embroidered flowers
and sang the secrets and dreams of a lost landscape.

I never entered
the room where my grandmother slept away the tears
of those stolen years.

Instead she baked and cooked and cleaned.
She washed and ironed and folded.
She pickled and canned and served.

A household to run, a child to raise.
A new country.

She planted a garden,
And made things grow,
flower and bear fruit.

Roses and summer cherries.

I wondered if she was lonely
in the solitary world
of her mother tongue.

A small child her constant companion.

She once tamed a motherless robin
Fallen from its nest.
Fed the tiny bird water with an eyedropper
and dissected worms with tweezers.

Enchanted, I watched.
Her kindness and gentleness engraved forever on my soul.