My Uncle Gordon (1926 – 2012)
For my dear cousin Paula
My Uncle Gordon
taught me to play chess
in the broad-beamed window sill
of my childhood bedroom
that looked out to the “black-witch branches”,
as he called them, of a dying apple orchard.
“Strategy, it’s all about thinking ahead” he would say.
I knew him as a generous soul.
My Uncle Gordon
asked me to build his idea of a flying train.
Balsa wood and glue were provided by him
with his engineered plans.
On his next visit we flew it outside his car window
as we ripped down the gravel road cheering
with excitement at its modest success despite
it careening, tether broken, crushed under wheel.
I knew him as a spirited inventor soul.
My Uncle Gordon
invented a word game,
WordSmith, he called it.
I helped to design it on my computer.
We played it visit after visit.
Like the flying train it crashed and burned,
lost under the wheels of the next invention.
I knew him as a creative soul.
My Uncle Gordon
made me think about God, bringing me citations
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy.
“Man is the reflection and expression of Love,
I know it’s hard to believe” he told me,
“but we have to remember. It’s important” he said.
I knew him as a spiritual soul.
What he was to you and you and you
I do not know
but I knew him as a generous, creative, spirited inventor,
a spiritual soul and much, much more.
by Richard 'Tai' Grove
BIO:
Richard "Tai" Grove is a poet, publisher of Hidden Brook Press, President of the Canada-Cuba Literary Association (CCLA), and a widely displayed visual artist.
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