The things I remember
about my grandfather
are the nuances missed by many;
his white pocket tee
that carried the grease stains of wrenching on some worn out tractor;
his trucker-hat
that sat cockeyed on his head
conveying
“I don’t give a damn what you think;”
his calloused and crooked old hands,
frozen by years of plowsharing
and wood splitting;
his rolled up Beech-Nut pouch
that lived in the back pocket of his britches;
his way he called my name
from the time I was a boy,
to the time I carried his casket as a man.
Life is measured
by memory;
with ease
we reminisce on the big events
that paint the timeline of our lives,
but it’s the mundane,
the everyday,
the tones,
the textures
that give our retrospection
an emotional hue
filling the empty space of our canvas
with the technicolor
of being human.