Nine years ago, my paternal grandmother was in the final…
Translation
for Loyal Jones
So I came out of my rainy bower
covered with white petals dropped
from a tree. My people long ago
whose milky eyes I still can see
would have said I had a God’s plenty
of petals on me, an expression I liked
to hear as a boy because I knew
it pointed out the obvious only
to make it—just like that—completely
something else. But those people are gone
away from the world, so I had to say it
myself, the God’s plenty of petals
that fell when the little rain came down
and I happened to be under the tree.
I have no idea what plenty is
to God, but it riddles my heart to know
that someone thought about it once,
probably after a day’s work
when he was staring at a lantern
or sitting on a porch to watch
the stars enumerate themselves
and struggling to find the words
to catch it all, then finding them.