Apologies to the Dads of the world who are not prepared for little kid-ness-- they do their best. I have fudged some details to fit the poetic form.
Grampa was better.
Dad's house had no dictionary
Though I found a pink kaleidoscope.
There was one potted plant
And no ice cream.
Five o'clock, Grammy's house, no room for ice cream!
Dinner would be ready soon.
I'd have to plant
Myself next to the candy kaleidoscope,
Turning the pages of the decadence dictionary.
One of the few books Grampa had was a dictionary,
It was never the only dessert, ice cream.
I sat on the lawn and turned the kaleidoscope.
Grampa would ride the lawnmower soon.
Grass clipping became soil is a better
Word than dirt, but, he said "Weeds are not plants."
Under his grow light, seeds became plants.
Behind my desk, words grew to dictionaries.
Grammy and Grampa's world knew better.
Their freezer made a softer ice cream.
Cherries, apples, leaf piles, coming soon,
Points on the wheel of the season's kaleidoscope.
Stations of the cross in a protestant kaleidoscope,
Work in the dirt for a fruit-bearing plant,
Her almanac the birthdays, coming up soon,
His diary the high and low temperature dictionary.
When we were sick, or when snow fell like ice cream,
We could live there till things got better.
The pink tomatoes in stores? Grampa's were better.
One slice revealed a bloody kaleidoscope
Pressing the cider, milling rock-salt ice cream
The autumn's crisp sweetness, the nectar of plants,
An apple tree leaves like the pages of dictionaries,
One was closed, one opening soon.
The ice cream that sweat turns tastes acres better,
I grew up so soon, the years like kaleidoscopes.
He planted his world, made stands for dictionaries.
