Pandemic               for my Grandfather Lawrence S. Fall

Oh Grandpa, in 1907
When pathogen was all around,
You quarantined in a tree house,
Poised on hickory boughs.
Clad in white sack gown, cap,
You climbed ladder to makeshift den,
Watched night mists travel through "Leba-nen."
Oh Grandpa, in 2020
Plague is near and far,
I Shelter-in-Place, wait for curve
To bend, observe backyard through window.
I see you in tallest tree,
--A handsome boy in white-- peering
Out through leafy domicile.
We spot each other
Across chlorophyll sills,
I in him, he in me.

Laura Stickney 2020




Notes:

photograph of Lawrence S. Fall as a boy

Lebanon, Indiana, pronounced "Leba-nen"