Grandma (Teta) Grace

Where did you go to Grandma

I’ve missed your baking aromas

Did you knit together our families connection

Were your cotton wares sown from fingers weary

Did you muse over the land you delighted in

Was your voice enchanted by the mountainous flair

When you sang the ancient Phoenicians songs

Did the Oud resound your soft,

hospitable tones

The dough you kneaded

Did it temper the fragrant of the Khubz

The scrub board you toiled

Were your dreams imagined there

Did the warm breeze from the Mediterranean

Uplift your contemplative concerns

Did the melody of your home piece together

Your grandchildren’s fine-tuned exhilarations

Did the chimes of the Cedars crepe comfort

To the discipline of your children’s wanderings

Were you frequented with gusts of tobacco

Was my Grandfather’s care cordial to his lady

Were the figs that you carefully picked

The fanfare of jam preserved, contained

The grape leaves that you piled

The pomp of the ingredients within

When you lay down to rest did you think of me

When the tides of tidying’s visited your doorstep

Did the streams nearby console you with their falls

Did the coffee beans and cardamom soothe calmly

Were your prayers the link to future hopes

Were your knees worn from the supplications recited

Did the church bells summon you to beauties realm

Did your confidence rise as you humbly bowed

Teta, I cherished what I remembered I didn’t have

To have known my Grandma’s grace

The sense of loss has been costly found

Your love for me, my love for you, poised in my heart

From the jars of clay, empty in their fullness

Spices of saffron and cinnamon rise in my heart

Fill me with your acquaintance that I may know you

As the aniseed sweetens, my Teta I long, crystallised

Salwa Samra © 2015

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