Forsythia in Winter

I did not discover my grandmother
until the year past her husband’s death
when she exploded like forsythia in winter,
a dervish of doing and living and traveling,
a woman of more passion than you would have believed
if you had seen her in the lifetime before,
meek, suppressed, given a piano,
but not allowed to play.
You remember her then,
often reading her bible by lamplight,
intently focused,
as if she was saving up possibilities
and God’s energy to live them
for the day she would be set free.

About this poem

My grandmother was indeed largely suppressed until my grandfather passed. You never would have known it from her attitude. She was always positive, but subdued. And then, when he died, a new woman, or perhaps the original woman, burst forth.

I have her bible next to my bed (That is it in the picture), as a reminder that it is never too late to become what you once were.

Tom