Chronology
by Brandie Trent
My grandmother kept a daily journal.
She wrote in that small black book
every afternoon,
sometimes before the day was truly over.
I seem to recall her recording in pencil,
but if that’s true,
the script in her almanac
might now be smeared --
smudged and faded like my memory.
As a child,
I was intrigued by what she scrolled --
what secrets she clasped
behind the golden latch
of her journal.
I would peak inside it sometimes,
breaking the unspoken rule of privacy,
but Grandma never locked the latch.
I would flip the pages,
referencing the dates
when I knew I had been at her house,
to see if my name
might be recorded there.
It was.
My name was there,
recorded in my grandmother’s curly script,
along with
the weather we had experienced that day
the food we had enjoyed
the …
My grandmother filled many
of these small, bound books
with the details that made her life her life
with the details that made my life my life
365 days a year
for many years
many years
Later,
when the mystery of her writing was solved,
and my childish imagination
was no longer concerned
with what riddles she might spell out
on her pages,
I had stopped noticing Grandmother’s writing
the daily writing
Now, I am grown
and the magic of these memory books
has returned.
I wonder now where these books are --
the invaluable measure of their worth
and the chronicles that make her life her life
and my life my life
She wrote in that small black book
every afternoon,
sometimes before the day was truly over.
I seem to recall her recording in pencil,
but if that’s true,
the script in her almanac
might now be smeared --
smudged and faded like my memory.
As a child,
I was intrigued by what she scrolled --
what secrets she clasped
behind the golden latch
of her journal.
I would peak inside it sometimes,
breaking the unspoken rule of privacy,
but Grandma never locked the latch.
I would flip the pages,
referencing the dates
when I knew I had been at her house,
to see if my name
might be recorded there.
It was.
My name was there,
recorded in my grandmother’s curly script,
along with
the weather we had experienced that day
the food we had enjoyed
the …
My grandmother filled many
of these small, bound books
with the details that made her life her life
with the details that made my life my life
365 days a year
for many years
many years
Later,
when the mystery of her writing was solved,
and my childish imagination
was no longer concerned
with what riddles she might spell out
on her pages,
I had stopped noticing Grandmother’s writing
the daily writing
Now, I am grown
and the magic of these memory books
has returned.
I wonder now where these books are --
the invaluable measure of their worth
and the chronicles that make her life her life
and my life my life