Norman Dubie
A Grandfather's Last Letter
Elise, I have your valentine with the red shoes. I have
Waited too many weeks to write–wanting to describe
The excitement on the back lawn for you:
the forsythia
Is now a bright yellow, and with the ribbons you draped
Inside it, trembles in a breeze,
All yellow and blues, like that pilot light this winter
Worried by just a little breath that came out of you.
On the dark side of the barn there's the usual railing
Of snow.
The tawny owl, nightingales, and moles
Have returned to the lawn again.
I have closed your grandmother's front rooms.
I know you miss her too. Her crocus bed showed its first
Green nose this morning. For breakfast I had
A duck's egg and muffins.
Your father thinks I shouldn't be alone?
Tell him I have planted a row of volunteer radishes.
I have replaced the north window . . .
So you have read your first book. Sewed a dress for
The doll. The very young and old are best at finding
Little things to do. The world is jealous of us, you know?
The moles are busy too. Much more mature this year,
The boar with the black velvet coat made a twelve-
Foot-long gallery under the linden where the mockingbirds
Are nesting.
The moles took some of my rags to add to
Their nursery of grass, leaves, and roots.
The cream-colored sow is yet to make her appearance!
They have seven mounds. Each with three bolt doors
Or holes. The pine martens are down from the woods, I see them
In the moonlight waiting for a kill.
Molehills can weaken a field so that a train
Passing through it sinks suddenly, the sleepers
In their berths sinking too!
I wonder what it's like in their underground rooms:
Their whiskers telegraphing the movements
Of earthworms. They don't require water when on
A steady diet of night crawlers. Worms are almost
Entirely made of water.
Last night there was quite an incident. The sun was going
Down and the silly boar was tunneling toward
The linden and he went shallow, the owl dropped down
Setting its claws into the lawn, actually taking hold
Of the blind mole, at that moment the mockingbird,
Thinking her nest threatened, fell on the owl putting
Her tiny talons into his shoulders. Well,
There they were, Elise, the owl on top of the invisible
Mole, the mockingbird on top of the owl. The mole
Moved backward a foot,
The birds were helpless and moved with him.
They formed quite a totem. The two birds looked so serious
In their predicament. A wind brushed the wash on the line.
And our three friends broke each for its respective zone.
Tomorrow the vines on the house are coming down. I want
The warmth of the sun on that wall. I'm sending
You a package with some of your grandmother's old clay
Dolls, silverware, and doilies.
Tell your father he is not coming in June to kill
The moles! Tell him to go fishing instead, or to take
Your mother to Florida.
You said you worry that someday I'll be dead also! Well,
Elise, of course, I will. I'll be hiding then from your world
Like our moles. They move through their tunnels
With a swimming motion. They don't know where they're going–
But they go.
There's more to this life than we know. If ever
You're sleeping in a train on the northern prairies
And everything sinks a little
But keeps on going, then, you've visited me in another world–
Where I am going.
Norman Dubie, The Mercy Seat: Collected and New Poems 1967-2001,
Copper Canyon Press, 2004.