A Flower Crown in May.

It seems there are always floors to walk upon
Brown and cool
Stretching wall to wall to wall
From hallowed to concrete hall
From Temple to Church
From Park to Station
And Station to Park again.
It seemed to me 
That there were always floors
But some of them were banned:
Walking upon them an exercise
In breathing air that was not for me.
From mountain to hillock
From river to tree.
There were floors on which
I scratched my name
Three clean strokes
Made dirty in shame
Making a white mark
Indelible, ugly
Intent on performing things
That I didn't know.
Indignities carved into trees
Your name and mine
In a heart intertwined
Growing like a scar
A riddle, a promise
A threat. 
And yet, and yet
And yet....
The floors I trod in cities I left - 
The floors I trod
Searching for my 
Grandfather and his 
Simple life
His chickens
His beard
His candles
His knife:
Come to the garden!
Come with me!
He lifted me up onto his shoulders
To see,
And brought the knife down
On the chickens neck
And I cried and scream
And he patted my leg
Indulgently holding
The bird upside down
To bring to Grandma
To cook for tea
Her meat stew bubbling
Upon a stove while
Telling me things
I did not understand
So softly and tenderly
despite his rough hands:
He remains a giant to me...
All came to nothing
But a few headstones
A name, a whisper
scratched upon itself
Stylishly in sand and loam
Buried in the mud.
Grandfather told me
Stories about the flood
Tales of women with
Heavy lidded eyes,
Doctors who helped;
And those who do not.
People born. And those
Left to rot.....
He wove for me
In blossoms and twigs
A crown one summers day.
He put it there upon my head
And he began to pray
I want to go back in time, 
Tell him it didn't work
My life was one of 
misery
One full of pain and hurt.
I suppose I have always been
Cruel, unkind
More keen to raise a sneer
Than a smile. 
But there was that day, 
In that meadow there
That grandfather wove
a crown of flowers 
In my hair
And I had
Possibilities
Instead of floors
The last time I saw him
I pulled closed his
Big wooden door with the lion
knocker. 
He looked so much older
And I was lost to him
And he to me.
But I remain his Harvest Girl
In that day back in that old country
Some May
Where Sorrow
Has never been and never
Can it be.