Cynthia Neely

Crossings

I. Her Books and Purse Upon Her Lap

I can see my grandmother
on a ship from England,
her books and purse upon her lap,
tightly, traversing the great expanse,

on the way to an unknown life.
At 30, a spinster, to find a mate,
she leaves a lush life of birding and golf,
a botanist father, for whom orchids are named

and a mother, disappointed
by a daughter who prefers
hiking, walking, stick in hand,
to serving suitors tea.


II. Where Proper Paths Cross

Crossing the waves of chance and change,
I picture my grandfather, on a boat
from Ireland; from famine,
from fear and unrest;

a minister's son, an Orangeman's boy,
a potato farmer. He plows his way, through sea and soil,
to the interior of Canada, and he takes a room
in the boarding house of Grandma's friend,

where their proper paths cross, briefly, barely;
and they embark on their affair
of letters and of words, an affair that persists
over time and distance,

he adrift on prairies of grain,
she held tight in the lap
of polite society,
thousands of miles apart.


III. Her Wedding Cake Upon Her Knees

I trace the map of courteous correspondence,
its solemn slow crossing, to each,
in turn, describing day to day
happenings, ardor, infatuations long passed,

long unfelt. And since she is no longer young,
and he is the only man to ask, she agrees,
after years of posted passion,
to marry him.

I imagine my grandmother, her words still remembered,
traveling by train, for days, sitting up,
her wedding cake upon her broad lap,
her thick knees unable to meet.


IV. And Chickadees On Her Head

I see her as I saw her when I was a child, before Parkinson’s,
before disease took what freedom she had.
I glimpse her, scarfed against the cold,
wrapped in an old fur coat;

which had crossed with her from England,
with a hand-carved tip-top table,
a scarred sea-chest with her trousseau:
china and silver and the fine family name.

She walks to get the mail, crossing the whitewashed lane
bordered with snow and wagon-wheels. She has treats
in her fur-lined pockets, sunflower seeds pursed in her lips,
and chickadees alighting on her shoulders and on her head.


V. The Life She Says She Was Meant to Have

Grandmother tells me how grand her life will be
after Grandfather dies, something he has alternately
threatened and promised for years. She will live
on Vancouver Island and have a garden again.

She was there once, the garden attendant politely amazed
by her knowledge of each Latin name, as he wheeled her
large chair-ridden frame
through the exhibits, one by one.

She pictures herself, on the ferry once again,
her bird books in her lap, spanning
the sound, to the life
she says she was meant to have.

Grandmother’s final crossing cast off far too soon.
It did not wait for her to live her island garden dream.
I have her tip-top table, her beloved books of birds,
and the painting of hydrangea, its looping Latin name,
inscribed, along with mine, on the back.