Grandad's Face : (Random Words)

Following on from Brian Miller's Random Word prompt at dVerse Poets last Saturday, ten random words used by Victoria C Slotto at Live2Write"day's Blog to fire a poem has tempted me -- too late for inclusion in the Open Link Night -- to do the same (even though, as some of you will know, I am not usually inspired by such prompts).

The randomly chosen words on her blog were: Elegance, Parousia, Steal, Merge, Enfold, Garnet, Ruptured, Saintly, Sabbath, Nebula. In escatology, she explained, the word Parousia refers to the end-time.



Grandad's Face

First time solo on the mighty 6.5...
aligning it, a slight miscalculation...
and there it is, an unknown nebula
in a sector thought to be uninteresting.
Now the jealousy will start. His seniors
with hours of gazing through the telescope
and never anything like this! Beginner's luck?
Of course it is! As if that bothers him,
he's focussed on the cloud of deep red dust,
it's golden halo -- and the custom that
will give the privilege to him of naming it!

He'll call it Garnet. Why? The colour, yes,
of course, but more than that... it's
reminding him of Granddad's garnet signet ring.
And soon, of course, the cranks will be around
peddling their tales of prophesies fulfilled.
Parousia indeed! He's having none of that!

But the halo puzzles him... why that?
He'll study it for several days, then realise
the dust is turning in upon itself,
the gold enfolding garnet like a present
being wrapped, the colours merging where
they meet. He thinks again of Grand-
dad's ring, how elegant it is -- he is. And how
it's only for the Sabbath, how he wears it only
for the Sunday Services, how true he is,
a saintly man, a man imbued with so much
divine power, you would have thought, as to
work miracles or give the world a sign.

And what would Granddad make of this, his Garnet
Nebula? And then he saw it... in the centre of
the red dust cloud, the face of Granddad,
smiling. Younger. Growing older. Looking
gaga. And then the image ruptured
and he saw the end of all things
and he could not look again.

---

The image is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.