Hi Paul:

Greetings from Manhattan. Over fifty years ago, my grandmother said a few things to me shortly before she died that I knew would eventually find their way into a poem. Here is “Grandmother’s Note” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.

Best wishes,

Charles Pierre

Paris. By Paul Goldfinger ©  Click to enlarge.

Grandmother’s Note

By Charles Pierre

Looking for less with each added year,

I’ve begun to live in the small space

that surrounds me now, in the shadows

that gather at my feet and follow

as I walk along, and in the breezes

that take my shape for an instant,

leaving nothing but gentle creases

in my hair and a cool ripple

over my skin. Expecting little,

I go where my handwriting leads me –

become just a sound, a word, a phrase,

part of the impression on the page

for a moment, not an old woman

with the obvious lines of age, but

a clear thought in this surrounding space

CAL TJADER: “The Night We Called it a Day”

Charles Pierre. Photograph by Marcella Kerr. ©

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