VINTAGE INNOCENCE

Its blooms are the same yellows and whites
As lamplight shining through ancestral lace
And a layer of falling snow
Yet the root of all nostalgia is
Survival, thick and convoluted
Reaching outward and downward to taper just above
Fear’s permafrost. The child now old
Who could not finish a bowl of oyster stew
One December 7th after his father turned on the lunchtime radio
Thinks things were safer then
Yes, because he was a child, responsible only
For cleaning his plate, collecting paper, selling bonds
Yet more because he is still here
Seeing across decades with reddened blue eyes.
How he wants to reach out
And pass more crackers, carrot sticks, milk
To that boy of 1941, and even a molasses cookie, mother-baked
With the assurance that yes, he will grow up, grow old.
Because he cannot, he sits by his sleeping granddaughter’s bed
Balancing hope and fear.
Can she hear her own voice calling from the future
Loud, clear, free
And free?