To My Little Brother

I wish you could have seen her:
with her calloused hands, digging potatoes
with her smiling eyes, laughing at Hee-Haw
with her ragged apron, fixing Saturday morning breakfast.
I wish you could have known her as I knew her:
singing me out of my dreams so I could watch cartoons in the morning
rubbing salty meat grease on my chigger bites
saying prayers with me before I went to sleep.
I wish you could have heard her:
laughing at all my antics
warning me of the dangers of our family's blood
saying prayers with her quavering voice before dinner.
I wish you could have felt her:
beautiful, wrinkled hands wipe away the tears of adolescence
serene presence as she sat eating oranges in her rocking chair
warmth she left behind in that rocking chair the day she passed on.

Your memories may not be able to walk as far down
that dirt road as mine wander, especially when the frosts melt
and the Spring rains come that bring so much life to the holler,
you are, nevertheless, distinguished by her love, forever marked by her creased hands upon your face.
And though the years since her laughter was heard begin to stretch
into decades and move faster and faster each time March becomes April,
our inheritance is as valuable today as it was on the day which it was first received.

We have been gifted wisdom and love in abundance,
wisdom, which has come down to us through ages uncounted
wisdom, which we must carry through this life, add to when we are
able and pass on to the next generation, so they will not be without.
Love, which cannot be measured by lapses of time or markings on a stick
and flows from one person to another like the Summer wind through an old grove of Hickory.
Love, which has no limitations but springs forth eternal
from tiny seeds planted by wrinkled hands.

Love and wisdom, the wealth of poor blood.