Grandma's Best China

Grandma’s Best China

If I was a little girl once, I don’t remember
No, no, can’t remember that
But I know there was a time when my Grandma was alive
And her house was soft as an old felt hat
Grandma herself corseted, powdered and stockinged
Into an impressive dignity
She was the cornerstone on which my family balanced like a circus act
She gave a sort of grace to our uncertainty

Under Grandma’s roof was a world unto itself
With round corners, where everything was pretty
I’d breathe in its sweet scents; it was beyond my life’s experience
This unchecked delight in femininity
What will I ever love better than the deep mysteries
Of her corner cupboard
Under lock and key, in alluring secrecy
Those treasures spoke to me like a lover

When the flowers would bloom in the spring
Grandma’s magnolia tree burst into teacups
It was all her best china and the birds would sing:
Cup-of-tea cup-of-tea, sugar sugar, cheer-up
Oh, best of everything, best of everything

Grandma kept her house with the help of a hired girl she called Katy

And a man who worked the yard
He’d be out there on his knees among the roses and peonies
She lived there ‘til it got too hard
They moved her away and they told her “Lie down, be still”
They meant for eternity
And she obeyed; she believed in the good book and heaven
And the holy trinity

When the flowers would bloom in the spring
Grandma’s magnolia tree burst into teacups
It was all her best china and the birds would sing:
Cup-of-tea cup-of-tea, sugar sugar, cheer-up
Oh, best of everything, best of everything
Arrow

The way we walked together and the distance traveled
High on Condor Mountain kicking gravel
He found a broken arrowhead shining in the dirt
Broken arrowhead tucked into the heart pocket of my shirt
The way we walked together, wind against our face
We were weathervanes turning together and aimed
Like an arrow

The nights I lay my head below his collarbone
I thought the dangers were outside us, what did I know?
I knew teeth and claws and wind and fire, but no
The danger was inside him all along, secretly growing
Up on Condor Mountain where the footpath narrows
A red-tail tucked its wings and dove down on a singing sparrow
Like an arrow

The sky, the hills, the sunset all are silent
So my conversations are one-sided
One for love and mystery, for walking on alone
Over bits of broken arrowhead, dust and clay and bones
But late at night as half a moon was rising
A shooting star flew across horizon to horizon
Like an arrow