FINDING MY GRANDFATHERS
MUSIC / 1965
My Grandfather went slowly mad
Lighting small fires on the driveway
I was but fourteen, naive and unprepared
By life for such strange behavior, not
Wise enough to be subtle, and he
Could no longer teach me, tell me
Of his real greatness, of his fighting
The Kaiser in France, of drinking with
His fine Iberian buddies, Dali and Picasso—
Driving women to passion with his elegant
Mastery of the piano, his strong
Spanish face, his magnificent prose, all
Too late for me, a fledgling surfer from
Another sun-washed California beach town.
And yet, as he descended into
God knows what delusions that come
On the wings of age and infirmity I was
Privy to this mans most inner mind, revealed
In a dusty rack of LP records, of which
To sooth his troubled soul I played repeatedly;
Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons, Vaughn Williams variations on
Thomas Talus, each sweet, indestructible piece
Inundating us like some rare soma
He in his private terrors, and I
In my hapless, innocent folly, both transported
By the superb genius of dead men’s
Symphonic dreams, in deathless perfection
Ringing out across the fragrant sage covered
Summer hills, shimmering in the heat
High above the blue bays of Laguna.
RICHARD ARTHUR LOVE... .11/7/98
