At a young age, my grandfather had his polio twisted leg 
corrected by a Russian immigrant using massage, hot towels, 
and my his failure to believe he could ever remain broken.

He filled his chest with this same faith in the cold winter air
he inhaled from a screened in porch of the hospital he conquered
tuberculosis in. He kept his big Swedish heart a secret never whispered.

His love was measured by the layers of dirt that covered his palms,
not the “I love you’s” he couldn’t bother to mutter. Some men
can’t spare three words with a family at home, hungry and waiting.
They do not have the time for it.

If actions speak louder than words, he was a helicopter orchestra
shot from the smoking barrel of a cannon caught in a hurricane, 
none in his presence left unaffected, their ears forever ringing.

He was far from perfect, never flawless, but he amended this, too,
the day he married a woman with more compassion than beads
of sweat that raced down his cheeks in every barn and cornfield.

Together, they equipped me with an endless arsenal of mean well, 
a Swede army knife of hold your head up, all these arms waiting
to be pulled out so I can embrace every corner of this world.

My pulse still beats to the hooves of horses, pulling his plow
across the heavens, because not even death could silence 
the pistons that pounded with every breath he exhaled.

My eyes are filled with the oceans she never saw, hers much
deeper and more blue than those tides could ever master.
I’m still tightroping the tops of sailboats to match the grace
in which she entered a room, never asking a single soul to give
up their seat. May my walk be as telling and true.

I wanna be the grandson they’re proud of, not just one they were given.
I wanna be that log splitting myth of a man with a work ethic unshakeable,

A man who measures his love by the homes he’s built.