Great Grandpa Buck

By John I. Blair

I hope that my Great Grandpa Buck
Held me once before he passed.
That was 1942;
I was born in ’41 –
An entire year he could have done it.

He needed healthy babies.

His own so often died too young –
Of all his dozen children
Just Willa lived to grieve Buck’s end;
Ruth, his only wife, life friend,
Had died at 48.

He lasted 40 more.

So I hope Buck held me once,
Enfolding me in wrinkled arms,
Finding in my warm and restless body
Remembrance that the lives he’d lost
Were not the only ones he’d touched.

I’d have been glad to volunteer.

©2012 John I. Blair