Unfading

 

He rises slowly from the bed; it seems to take longer each day now

He looks at his wife of fifty-four anniversaries, still asleep at six-thirty

She’s just as beautiful as the day he met her seventy years ago

A laughing, blue-eyed girl who ran from his eight-year-old self

Then said “I do” sixteen years later, following him into golden wheat field dreams.

 

At the breakfast table, he struggles to spread butter on his toast

With hands so calloused and worn there’s hardly any feeling left at all

But he recalls soil between his palms; smooth wood beneath his fingers

Pieces of the living he chose; shining oceans of wheat and solid homes

They’ve become weaker now; not as steady or strong as they once were

But these hands once grew his family’s food; these hands raised six children.

 

He puts on his shoes and walks to his garage, thinking of the many miles he’s covered

Not only in the province he calls homes, but visits to other parts of his country too

In the garage, he pulls the lightbulb’s silver chain and breathes the musty air

He is reminded of a different smell, the smell of green pasture after rain

The smell of warm wheat fields under the hot summer sun.

 

His eyes have grown dull with age, but his memories are still sharp:

The dark blue eyes of his six-month-old granddaughter; she graduates this spring

The gleam of his first tractor; even the rust has long disintegrated

The tears in his wife’s eyes when he got down on one knee and held up a ring

And now, even in the dark, he sees the light dance in her silvery hair

And he knows that no matter how he ages, he will not lose these pieces of his life.