Grave Rubbing (For Annie Christina Burton)

Love sent me off,
years later brought me home
still a frightened and bewildered child.
So little hope
that memory became all important.

As to lifetime goals and pride of achievement,
these, too, had failed.
What there was to hold
was memory of a hand that was kind
and times of laughter;

most of all, details—what came first, what after;
what was said or told,
and how things appeared to a child.

Image is the gold of this realm
and I have stored
up images as a miser stores pennies.
Now I want to spend
quickly and fully or, perhaps, just lend.

Sometimes I mint
my own American gold eagles
and I love the clink
as I put them down hard into place.

What I’ve purchased forever is lost:
your approving face,
my father's laugh,
and all the places we lived.

At your grave I trace
the outlines of a life not yet ended,
and the shape of grace
that has followed me everywhere
in all its shadings.