Tree Work with My Grandfather, Over Eighty

by S.A. Volz

Half-sized but hungry, the chainsaw gnaws 
through limbs and branches linked 
like a protest march. After years 
of leaving nature be, he is back 
ascending ladders in his widowhood, 
reckless and strong in that piddling way 
old men stay young in the country— 
mowing grass and burning trash, 
keeping a little garden. 

Atop the ladder, his paunch 
and spindled legs seem like cartoon--
the hatchling partially hatched. 
But he’s steady as he shears, 
unfazed by the juddering saw,
the sink of shifted weight. 
My hands shake as I try and stifle 
the ladder’s sway, the saw spitting 
chips and dust like sunflower seeds 
from a ballplayer’s mouth. 

He knows that my yard is a square 
cropped in concrete, so he keeps 
the angles of attack to himself, 
which way the limb will fall.
I remain the helper of boyhood
when nothing was better than a cold soda 
and a five-dollar bill at afternoon’s end.

He works on, in control of his own 
like the aged Eskimo who takes his time 
until he takes to the ice--
leaving me to stand on what seems
like solid ground.

​

Doing the Sunday Crossword

She folds the newspaper with measured creases,
barring out advice columns and Op-Eds.
I smooth the bed sheets and turn the TV
to an old Western, sepia-toned and tuned low.
The fan’s oscillations flutter her gown,
paisley like a desperado’s bandana. 
    
The changes with the passing moons have been many, 
the nightgown not-so-loose to conceal the belly 
that curves like the taut bend of an archer’s bow. 

Soon, these nights will be blitzed by bedside walkie-talkie. 
Like infantryman we’ll wait for news of the next wave.
Too long a lull and we’ll wonder at radio silence, 
risking remounted assault for reconnaissance--
across-the-hall confirmation of safe in sleep’s cradle.

But now it’s time to prove that brain power 
will come from both sides of the family tree. 
Feeling as lost as the film hero’s horse, 
I try and unspool threads of half-forgotten fact— 
noble gases and Roman emperors; 
capitals and cloud types. We parse play-on-words 
until the answers groan and give way. 

There’s a showdown in the Western but I withdraw, 
taking away a plate from the nightstand— 
leavings of cream cheese and cucumber.
From the sink window the moonlight slides 
into the night, the fat side of the crescent 
like a woman with child. 

I find the finished puzzle on the nightstand,
its defeat sung in the lamplight shine.
The Western is over as well, and I find that
I cannot recall if the hero’s wound was mortal. 

As I get into bed I joke that John Wayne 
would’ve used a pen had he been doing 
the Sunday crossword. But she is fading,
turning on her pillow and turning off the light.
The darkness grows into longing: 
rain softly falling through September skies, 
a lonely ride to sunset.

​