A Man Was Here, Weigh Day, How to Recite a Poem

By Carol Coven Grannick

A MAN WAS HERE

 

A gentle man checks graves in Chicago.

I don’t know him

 

but I believe he moves softly, stepping

with worn shoes many times polished,

 

through gravestones flat and raised,

washed by weather and years

 

I want to believe he gathers

information with pad and pencil,

 

a soft rag in his hand slightly damp

for shooing dust from the stones.

 

My grandpa is buried in this quiet place,

and this man, moving softly,

 

re-attached the photo on his grave

and never asked for thanks.

 

But he moved here, through the gravestones,

his many-times polished shoes and he,

 

sacred as his steps.

 

 

WEIGH DAY

 

In the nineteen fifties

my teacher did nothing

about the laughter

when they forced me to step up.

 

It’s not as if

I began the school day

with loving my body.

But until that day

 

it was at least a hate

wrapped in layers

 

of private shame.

 

It did not

make me a writer.

But it did

give me a subject.

 

 

HOW TO RECITE A POEM

 

Pronounce the words with kindness.

Lift your voice so the world will hear.

Kiss each sound

so the poem will know it’s loved.