I’m thinking today of my grandmother
a strong country woman, schooled
in hard work, grief, and superstition.

She hummed old hymns as she rolled dough,
punched out biscuits, and swept the family store’s
black-oiled floors with scattered salt at closing time.

In a cotton dress, she weeded her flower beds
until the slate black ground framed
purple iris, red canna, and four o’clocks
that bloomed on time.

She taught me not to count cars
in a funeral procession,
or sweep the walk after dark,
and how to heal warts by moonlight

My father was her only son ‐
two small stones
mark the graves of brothers
he never knew.

She taught me about death and grief
when I was a teen by starting most
sentences with “When I am gone,”

I heard those words for twenty years
before she lay dying
By then my tears had all been shed‐
leaving a small stone sitting in my heart
to mark their place