Almanac Poetry: The Last Time I Saw My Great-Grandmother
The Voyage of Life: Old Age, by Thomas Cole, oil on canvas, 1842. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. [Wikimedia Commons.]
The Last Time I Saw My Great-Grandmother
The vast, manicured lawns
of the country town hospital
stretched out sleepily in the February sun,
shaded here and there by ancient gums.
We walked up the smooth gravel driveway,
my mother, younger sister and me,
towards the white-columned front entrance.
Near a shed to one side,
an elderly bloke
arthritically eased himself from a sit-on mower.
Exhausted, he wiped his forehead
with the brim of a cow-cocky hat.
He glared as if we were trespassers.
Through the big glass doors we went,
then down a long, cool corridor
with white, thickly plastered walls.
Our reflections slid quickly
across the gleaming lino.
Finally we came
to the pigeon hole of a room
where my great-grandmother resided,
happy, oblivious
to everything in the outside world.
My mother had a chat
then nudged me forward to say hello.
But on that day I last saw her,
in February 1972,
my great-grandmother didn’t have a bloody clue
who the ten-year-old boy in front of her was,
and more than this, because of my long hair,
thought I was a girl.
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
Kevin Densley’s latest poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws…I’m Feeling Too Indolent, is available HERE
Read more Almanac Poetry HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws ... I'm Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
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