Tonight, I sat outside in my hot tub as June rain
fell against the pine trees and into the tall grass all around me. I thought about my grandparents as raindrops also
brought forth temporary sculptures on the surface of the water in my hot
tub.
It occurred to me that we live and we die.
I know…we all have these thoughts.
My thoughts soon turned to how much I miss my
grandparents. I imagined the sounds of
their house around me again: footsteps ascending the stairs to my room on the
upper floor and nightly freight trains rumbling by. I heard the voice of my grandfather and heard
my grandmother laughing. I considered how
they raised me from the age of twelve; and how they honestly saved me from a
life cluttered by the anger and bad choices of my parents.
It mattered that my grandparents lived.
Tomorrow, at dawn, the first strokes of yellow light
will spur nighthawks to veer against the mists lifting from tonight’s
rain. They are yet quick, the birds, and
ascending. In this life you are either
on stairs that take up into the mists or stairs that lead down into shadows.
Up, then, in the morrow, with nighthawks.
Up with those soon-to-be grandparents all around me
and up the July grass.
On into summer and up the stairs we shall go
together.
--Mitchell
Hegman
Thoughts about life and death....strange. I was thinking the other day of communicating with Vera and giving her some instructions. I want some of my ashes scattered at The Front Range. The place felt strangely familiar when I was there, like I had been there before -- maybe in a past life.
ReplyDeleteI recall that day we first drove there and your reaction. The Front Range is one of my favorite places in Montana. The landscape there really defines Montana.
ReplyDelete