by Ronnie Sirmans

(Psalm 8:3-5)

“I like mousse with my juice,” 
my granddaughter tells me.
“I go like a goose on the loose.
See, poems are so easy, Pa-Pa.” 
We wend our way across my yard,
and I tell little Anna, “Yes, like this,”
as I pick up a crinkled leaf, dead,  
and crumble it between my fingers. 
“What word is that, my petite poet?”
I ask. “Old,” she says as the flecks
of brittle parchment pepper the air. 
And suddenly, a goose honks once
as it flies overhead, then another,
and another, and Anna giggles. 
My smile hides a silent prayer:
A hope that she might one day
hear the crackle of such a leaf
and catch little syllables flaking,
perhaps iambic geese overhead 
as epitaphs fall softly from trees.

---

Ronnie Sirmans is an Atlanta print newspaper digital editor whose poetry has appeared in Fathom, Sojourners, Ekstasis, Reformed Journal, America, Heart of Flesh, and elsewhere.

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