My daughter and I work with words
share phrases back and forth
shuffle clauses for clarity.
Her granddad is different. His words
day after day, are the same —
same stories, same phrases.
Many of our words he doesn’t hear
His son says it makes little difference
even when he could hear he didn’t listen
even when he could remember
he still told the same stories.
But today
when he came home
I was digging up the garden
He said, Want me to do that?
I let him take the shovel
I steadied him
he broke up the dirt
I tossed it, with another shovel
into the pile.
He tired quickly, but joined in again soon
and we moved
in the steady language
of working together
remembered by the body
safe from the mind’s forgetting.
We finished that job
the smooth soil
our own new story.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2011