crickle camp fire crackles
from trickly drip mist bog
sip vintage spruce sap wine
atop birchwood swamp log
wet wood smoky choky
impromptu bonfire night
midsummer daze-y haze
from bejeweled flame light
translucent and transcending
tongues untied by the wine
primeval wisdom descending
helped by fire, water and vine
t'was ever thus, this ritual
immemorial riddles break
eternity's secrets told round
primordial old growth lake
woods-wise elders saging
universe mysteries meditating
dune conclave arbitrating
hemlock scented mediating
I was young by the lake
in paradise I called mine
I walked among giants once
in faraway long ago time
with an elder wise as a god
nattering on freely we did
never shushing nor shaming
keep mum was all he forbid
demanding I ask my questions
treating them with gravitas
no matter how trite or common
foolish were only the unasked.
unschooled yet wise past time
this trodder of untrodden ways
the acolyte pays her homage
to my dearest ancient of days
he was more than Irish charm
he'd charisma, gin and IT
with a twist of lime and pine
blarney with no bullshit
transparent where he could
opaque on his own pain
translucent when needs must
blurring bad with twilight rain
I've tried hard not to stray
to printer's black ink rhyme
all it gets is hurt by my
endless jitterbug with time.
he passed so quietly it hurts
no footprints left by our sea
thus this elegiac wander
to my grandfather from me
and so I pick up his torch
of peripatetic homily
continuing Opi's opus
to kinderen entrusted to me
I shall be the elder now
sitting shiva by our lake
keening out the lessons
in a perfectly Granda wake
I love you Grampa-Opi Kinney. Moy Dorogoy. Mo chridhe
Rest in peace.
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