"Grandma's Grave"/"To Daffodils"--WOW Poems by Freya Manfred and Robert Herrick-Life is Short

Grandma's Grave by Freya Manfred Mother and I brush long drifts of snow from the gravestones of my great grandfather and grandmother, great uncle and aunt, two of mother's brothers, each less than a year old, and her last-born brother, George Shorba, dead at sixteen: 1925-1942 A Mastermind. My Beloved Son. But we can't find the grave of Grandma, who buried all the rest. Mother stands dark-browed and musing, under the pines, and I imagine her as a child, wondering why her mother left home so often to tend the sick, the dying, the dead. Borrowing a shovel, she digs, until she uncovers: 1889-1962 Mary Shorba Mother almost never cries, but she does now. She stares at this stone as if it were the answer to all the hidden things. "Grandma's Grave" by Freya Manfred from Swimming with a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

To Daffodils by Robert Herrick Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay, As you, or anything. We die As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain; Or as the pearls of morning's dew, Ne'er to be found again. "To Daffodils" by Robert Herrick. Public Domain.