Carol Grametbauer
Remains of the Days
Always the keeper of the wrong details:
recalling of my wedding just the hat
my cousin wore, bees buzzing in the pale
chrysanthemums outside the church, and that
relentless heat that made the candles melt.
My father's funeral, devoid of all
except the cloying way the flowers smelled,
a line of black umbrellas in the hall.
Substantive things are lost; all that survive
are small vignettes with no connecting plot —
a row of brownstones on a family drive
to Pittsburgh, goosegrass in a vacant lot —
the big events now blurred and ill-defined,
nothing but minutiae left behind.
~
Carol Grametbauer lives in Kingston, Tennessee. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Appalachian Heritage, Appalachian Journal, Connecticut River Review, and Third Wednesday, as well as in a number of online journals and anthologies. Her chapbook, Now & Then, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2014. She is chair of the board of directors of Tennessee Mountain Writers, a nonprofit organization that promotes the literary arts and supports the work of Tennessee writers.
return to sampler return to poetry home~