An Elegy for my Grandfather

A poem written by my sister who was able to spend time with our grandfather and extended family in Thailand at the time of his passing...

This is what it comes to:
wiping dusty blue chairs
with a saffron colored cloth.
We bend to our task
daughters, grandchildren,
great-grandchildren all.

The elder women sit cross-legged
their strong hands bend
bright green banana leaves
filling them with flowers.

The men heave each metal rib
and piece together what had been apart
A shade from the heat, to shelter our grief.
All that's left are the echoes
of his gruff chuckle, the ease with which
he sat with his after dinner whiskey and smokes.

And how he lived is how he died.
The hospital was our mecca and we traveled
to stroke his grasping hands,
to knead his troubled back,
to tell him we were there.

The fans whirl, and the temple dogs lie.
Shhhh, shhhh, go the soft bristle brooms
the women sweep the temple floors
purifying, cleaning, bending, bending.

We placed his gold rimmed glasses
on his still breathless head.
We laid another pair, folded

neatly next to him if, by

some chance, he needed a spare.
For seven days, white and black is all we'll wear.
We will go, bearing racks of glasses, and trays.

While the bird wails and whoops in the
temple courtyard.
The pink sun was low in the sky, the hour
the dear man died.

We will wipe our brows of sweat.

We will lift cooled water to our lips.
We will talk sometimes of him,
We will talk sometimes of nothing at all.
We will gather while the smell of flowers rise
and the wind blows ashes to the west.

The small boys loll on their backs
on red woven mats,
uninterested in what comes in the end.

Joy Hui Lin