she is a modern woman, born of wealth

the kind hard won, but wealth nonetheless

she eschews antiques, goes for modern

though modern as it was some time ago

she reads novels, nothing which isn't

on the current bestseller list, she plays

tennis on saturdays, then takes a bath

she isn't social, preferring grandchildren

to peers, and why not, we're pretty great

modern or not, she wears her long gray hair

in a bun, which she brushes out before bed,

her single bed on the sleeping porch

cold weather or hot. she takes no truck

with cuisine, happy to thaw and microwave

something stouffer's made in their kitchen

sips jack daniels while watching the news

thirteen grandchild, not so many, but each

think they are her favorite, which takes

some doing i suspect. tolerant, oh my word,

straight or not, gray or green, lout or whip

it's no difference to her, we're all god's creatures

busy, lord, hospital gift shop one day

veteran's rehab the next, how those sailors

can knit, did you know, leather-craft, sewing

this was during the war, the one that came

after the one that didn't end all wars, 

modern, oh yeah, i once asked to see her

wedding album. what album, which is how

i came to know my mom was an unexpected gift

but what is all this but a list, she is the center

of our world, her house is our home, and

though she doesn't read them, the old books

her father collected have been our schooling

and the golden book of bible stories are all

the bible study we'll ever have, heathens

that we were and are, and little worse for it

modern and eternally young, never give a inch

to quote hank stamper, her own thoughts

kept to herself, burying her two daughters

a year apart. no, she never gives a inch, until

one day she does. a modern woman, whose

ashes we scatter on the beach, and whose

vast collection of wave soften stones we return

to their sandy shore as we tell stories on her

a modern woman, our grandmother, who

chose to bestow her wealth, as she conceived it,

which was love, upon us, doing for me

what few others could or would, letting me be me.