She longs for trees and night
Both left behind for the land
Of midnight sun. She had not expected
To live out a century on the cusp of America.
Born in the nation’s capital
This place so foreign to her.
She misses the long walks from Brentwood
To shops on H Street, she misses
Her childhood, her brother, the bed
They shared in the crowded living room.
She remembers the wind, the day
A tornado ripped Bladensburg
And she and Billy huddled in a ditch
While fences blew skyward above them.
Here she is so far from her own life.
Loneliness has carved a space
Beside her, and behind. She prays
And sometimes God whispers in her ear.
Memories fill her time. There is little else
Except a corner for her crossword puzzle
And her books. Her great-grandchildren,
15 of them, congregate in her thoughts.
She cannot keep them straight.
She is bent 90 degrees to the ground
Which one day will take her old bones
And heart and send them home.