Beneath Mom’s Brown Pillow

He’s nodded off again
His hands clasped beneath mom’s brown pillow
He softly mumbles his sleepy to-do’s
But these soft, warm hands of his are done
Splintering wooden handles over rocky Arkansas soil, toil
Hauling heavy Navy chains from bough to stern
And back again in the cold Pacific Pond
Bound for Jay-Pan
Every spin of the propeller pushing him further from home
Grandpa, what does it feel like
to leave the only home you’d ever known
To  simply let go of all that you know and love
Bound for a distant land
What was it like for your family
As they stood helplessly on the shore
Watching you sail further and further away
By the Grace of God, you made your way back home…to them
Jay-Pan is now just another hornbeam hedge
In a vast Victorian Maze that has grown up around you
Swallowing, enveloping, encroaching
Your arms outstretched, waving, calling
I can only see your hands above those towering hedges
Strong and Warm as they held countless babies and grandbabies
Each one, your Duper-Dandy
Daddy’s little Duper Dandy, Grandpa’s little Duper Dandy
Still my greatest accolade
Can it ever be again?
These hands, nearly frost-bitten in cold, bleak railyards
For as many years as I have ever lived and loved
To put food in hungry little mouths
Of countless Duper-Dandys
These hands wrestled steel, iron, exhaustion, pain
To put shiny Sunday shoes on tiny funplay feet
These hands, clenched in prayer, stop space and time
As God, Himself, hushes heavenly harps to hear
My Grandpa give thanks, say Grace
Even now, as he sails off again to an even more distant shore
With no guarantees one propeller spin at a time
Further and further into the hedge maze
Of that vast Victorian Garden that has grown up around him
I can still rest assured that these hands
Nearly frostbitten hands, blistered hands, Waving hands, Sunday shoe hands
Are tucked warmly in his lap
Beneath mom’s brown pillow

by Donte Tamprateep, age 32, Ballwin, MO