His First Words

Grandma ...
If I could call anything else by that name,
It'd be you.
With arms so long, stretched out, ancient and wrinkled,
Waiting for an embrace - blindly,
Only a mother can give so selflessly,
Be ripped and torn, shed so much of herself,
Yet be reborn,
Ready to give, to blossom, let her hopes, dreams & feelings fruition,
And let you pick from those fruits,
When you can feel no feeling inside, hungry - emotionally and spiritually un-satiated,
Even if it means for her to die.

Thank you for breathing my exhalations, drenched in anxieties, fears, hate,
No matter how toxic to your own health, no matter how much it burnt,
And breathing out my next breath - pure, as if you knew no hurt,
Allowing me to breathe easy, be easy, breathe .... freely.
Thank you for being so tall, in a world where being seen, for you, may mean death,
Then letting me rest in the shade of your courage and patience,
For letting me sit at your roots & suckle from the sap that you bled.

See like you now, I too carry my seed, sometimes, on my shoulders,
Let him grow and bare fruits of his own,
I often carried his warm body in my arms to you, as I once too often found solace in yours, he loved your arms as I did,
He'd wave to you as your hands waved at him, singing, waving -
... back and forth, back and forth ... back ... and forth ... and back,
This became the anthem of our bond, the lullaby of our goodnight cuddles,
The soundtrack of our every quiet moment, when our eyes locked and we smiled,
Our silent "I love you's" we'd sneak in when no one was the wiser.

I love you, grandma, because, we loved you together, we bonded over your name,
Over your sizes, shapes, the colors that lived in your arms,
And fell like light refracted in our own prism of "Father and son",
Immortalized in that one moment, when he spoke .. before never having spoken ...

" Tree" he said ... You were his first word, you were our first word.
... "Tree."

Tree.