My Russian Grandfather Poem by Alla Bozarth

He was Amadeus, Gottlieb~ Bogdan~ Beloved of God.
He was the black sheep in a family of brothers
who were wealthy land-owning farmers near the Black Sea.
I did not know his name until I was in my thirties.
He lived hard and died wayward, young and unwell.
I am not young, but I do live hard.

Some of us resent the need to sleep.
We resist unconsciousness, seek ways to avoid it,
even if we already suffer the gift of insomnia.
We want our bodies to figure out how not to need it.

Meanwhile, we relish the night
when the world is quiet and leaves us alone
to flow from moment to moment at white heat
intensity without interruption, and also to rest
and enjoy our comforting solitary pleasures,
which we would not want to miss
by sleeping right through them.

Then, when day comes, we try to figure out
how not to waste the light, half of which we have
helplessly dozed through without experiencing it,
and we like to experience nearly everything.

It is surprising to me still to be alive,
given my body’s compromised state
and my soul’s essential way of overriding it—
having 50% capacity and living at 150% intensity.
I don’t take it for granted. I wake up amazed
every day around the crack of noon from a few hours nap,
stretch into it and wonder what other surprises
the day will bring me, the many small or large things
that will constitute my life and add interest to its treasury.

Some souls born into time seem to live uncomplicated lives.
When they die, whether old or young, one imagines them
being airlifted to heaven. It seems it must be easy for them.
Perhaps this is all deceiving and superficial.
Others of us do it differently, slogging our way through the swamp
of temporal Purgatory, suffering Hell and savoring Heaven proleptically
here and there, but always enjoying a rich and varied texture,
bright or deep, always true colors. We don’t want to blend into
the daily drabness of half-lives and hide out from God while we’re here.
But for privacy and freedom we live in the country or mountains
or forest or down by the sea, near a park in the city, or a modest place
in the suburbs surrounded by trees, where the world won’t bother us
so much and criticize us for our vivid colors and eccentricities,
or siphon our time and energies away from the acute observation
and participation we enjoy with all that is around us.
We will be glad to be accepted by the other animals who will likely find
some entertainment in our inelegant but goodwilling presence.
Every second of every day, we will marvel at the miracle of being here.

I have told you everything I know
about my Russian grandfather
and everything important about
me, his only grandchild. From this,
it’s clear that like him I go at life
full throttle and burn fuel as if I had
enough for tomorrow, even after today’s
is used up. Unlike him, I shall not die young,
but, even if my body is ill in letting me go,
I shall die very well.


This poem is in the book Diamonds in a Stony Field
by Alla Renée Bozarth, copyright 2011. All rights reserved.