The Window
It started on the morning of Christmas
You, on that bed
your legs frail and useless, your eyes listless
you rubbed your hands and hung your head
and looked at the snow whipping outside the window,
the wind howling to the Texan sky
the untold story of your life, your legacy, your name.
Too weak to speak, or even to cry-
Oh, the indignity!
You must have turned your head in shame
towards the window with the snow that bit and blew-
I'll never know.
I was too busy looking at everything but you,
consumed by thoughts of what I didn't know-
On Sunday mornings, did you read the comics and satiricals?
But in the end I, too, turned to look at the soft, white snow-
On your very last day-
a Christmas miracle.
You, on that bed
your legs frail and useless, your eyes listless
you rubbed your hands and hung your head
and looked at the snow whipping outside the window,
the wind howling to the Texan sky
the untold story of your life, your legacy, your name.
Too weak to speak, or even to cry-
Oh, the indignity!
You must have turned your head in shame
towards the window with the snow that bit and blew-
I'll never know.
I was too busy looking at everything but you,
consumed by thoughts of what I didn't know-
On Sunday mornings, did you read the comics and satiricals?
But in the end I, too, turned to look at the soft, white snow-
On your very last day-
a Christmas miracle.
♠ ♠ ♠
My great-grandfather died a few days ago, and I'm going to the funeral in a few hours. My mind keeps going back to last Christmas, when he was first hospitalized, and too staring outside the window at the snow. It was the only time it snowed this year.