Trevor Ellestad shares one hundred words about his ninety-nine year-old grandfather.
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Ninety-nine and only faded battlefields behind me: grumbling tanks, tire treads, bodies laid on broken pavement.
My hands are worn from turning soil and stone. Sunburns. Digestion. These cocktails of rye, garlic and hot peppers have deafened, blinded and numbed me.
Traveled by boats to bring ten lives into the world, now seven left for us to hold.
I shrink, except my growing tumour.
Boards to ground, the barn long crumbled and smoldering heaps of food scrap coax the spring laden creek bed to choke and gurgle. My grape seeds struggle another year to take root in these unforgiving hills.
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Image credit: ‘Playingwithbrushes’/Flickr
I aim to live a life worthy of a poem written by my granddaughter. This was sublime. Thank you!
Absolutely beautiful. Thanks for writing it.