Grandma

A wise owl lived inside

my grandmother,

looking out through her round-rimmed glasses.

When she looked at me,

I thought she could see all my transgressions,

laid bare, like God could.

Her words carried weight

because they came from wisdom, and love.

She wanted me to be

better than I had much hope of being,

in those days,

when home was not safe,

and my spirit shriveled.

Mostly, she saved my life,

by showing me that life could be

peaceful, and ordered, and calm.

Her little cottage was so quiet,

you could hear the clock 

on the kitchen windowsill

ticking all over the house,

like a heartbeat,

steady and true.

In those days,

she was my North Star.

She was infinitely kind,

and raised all of us grandkids, one by one,

telling us of a mythical little girl

called Vivian, who would never do

the kinds of naughty things we did, 

never in a million years.

We all hated Vivian,

prim and proper

and impossibly good.

She told us stories of ghosts and goblins,

and showed us blue fairies dancing in the flames

of the gas fireplace on winter afternoons.

She believed in us, until we grew old enough

to believe in ourselves.

She showed me the kind of peaceful life

I wanted for myself,

and tried to create,

once I had left childhood behind

and made homes of my own.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif:  significant adults in a child's life. For me, that was my Grandma.