Origins and Longevity

for Ken

I don’t know where my father’s gone
no one can really tell
with his thick hands and shoulders
his cramped-up legs
his way with horses
his laughter and scorn
the wide brow with its hatchet scar
fallen from the top of a step-ladder
just before I was born.

Before that I was smaller
than the black gnat
running over this page
with its wings and nerves
its spindly antenna
picking up messages
from the grass
that grows near the musty grave.
I was smaller than a grain
and didn’t feel the pain
and I sang and drifted,
drifted and sang

and later lived like a honeybee
buzzing to work in the mind of the hive,
it took thousands of us to make a thought
with no child left behind.

Now my friend speaks of turmeric
the gold spice cooked into curry and rice
which helps to prevent dementia,
which can sometimes make you forget to eat
and forget the name of your wife.
He says flossing the teeth can help as well
to keep inflammation away from the brain —
and each day he takes a turmeric pill
on the way down to work in the morning
traveling the winding road back to heaven
breathing its peppery smell.

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(Featured image from Pexels)