Thanks to Mamita Mala for this idea. I’m late, but I’m going to try and do this…

I’m going to try and get over my fear of perfection (because that leads you to a brick writing wall of paralysis) and just WRITE.

So, heeeeerrreee goes…

Lolo and Lolo
I never knew my grandfathers
– grand clocks who stopped before my time –

My Lolo Fernandez rode the train
and loved basil gardens

My Lolo Factora believed soup bones
healed birthing mothers

One Spanish, One Filipino
One engineer, One soldier
Two invisible vines
encircling one garden

When my mother smells the basil in the grocer
Or moves her face into the wind, she says
I’m thinking of my father

In early December, my father grows quiet
And wordlessly heads to a morning mass
He’s thinking of his father

They never speak much of them
But I see their eyes change
when Lolo moves in their presence

And the stopped clocks tick one last tock
through my parents

And I listen to their memory.