Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
If my father were alive, he would play
his accordion and sway like a boat.
I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
running away in the grass.
But I love to hear it sung;
how the waterlilies fill with rain until
they overturn, spilling water into water,
then rock back, and fill with more.
Both women have begun to cry.
But neither stops her song.
(Lorine Niedecker's "Grandfather" appears in "The Granite Pail: The Selected Poems of Lorine Niedecker," edited by Cid Corman. North Point. Copyright © 1985 by the Estate of Lorine Niedecker. The lines from Jane Kenyon's "Staying at Grandma's" come from her collection "Let Evening Come." Graywolf. Copyright © 1990 by Jane Kenyon. The lines from Lucille Clifton's poem "Daughters" appear in her collection "The Book of Light." Copper Canyon. Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton. Li-Young Lee's poem "I Ask My Grandmother to Sing" appears in his book "Rose." BOA. Copyright © 1986 By Li-Young Lee.)
