Children of Children

after a line by Aleathia Drehmer

She looked on while one

cracked the eggs and

measured flour, and one tucked

candles into buttercream to light,

and then they sang for me—

daughter, daughter, wife.

I felt full without a bite.

Was 40 like this for you,

all those decades before?

Your wife and your son (my father

who fathered two in turn),

gathered about a glowing cake.

1964. Your chickens would have

given the eggs, your cows the cream.

You a farmer who had

come home from war,

married, raised my father, tilled

land many miles from here.

You are buried, now,

many miles from here.

I think of you anyway, how you always

touched the ground: feet planted or

hands in earth, solid and knowing,

certain of what you grew.