Grandma’s House

No matter how old we get, some holiday memories never fade. One is the nostalgia of piling in the family car packed with gifts, and heading over the river and through the snow-touched woods to Grandma’s house. This poem by Meredith Lowry, contributor to the mystic poetry collection, “Essential Astonishments”, captures the sense of belonging she felt long ago.

Grandma’s House

I sit here this steamy summer morning
in my grandmother’s house,
where my soul has always lived and bathed
in a love so tender, so sweet;
an unconditional connection,
as timeless as the sun’s presence
throughout the nights and days of my life,
warming as the crimson becoming vermillion,
turning yellow light of this August sunrise.
And at other times with the crisp, sparkling, twinkling presence
of the stars on a January night,
when reflections of the stillness of sky and lake merge
without a seeming boundary between,
their breathing soothes and
illuminates such a deep space in myself
where beauty, peace and joy arise,
with the grace of a far-reaching breadth of a rising tide.
Seamlessly and silently swimming its way
up towards the river’s source,
rising and falling,
with the same breath breathing
along to where the inwardly known home beckons—
calling out to each one,
shad, salmon, or soul,
whether now or before the dammings,
promising repose after life’s long, full and arduous journey upstream.
Now as I lie on my bed
I sense the coming and going of my breath,
the rising and falling, filling and emptying,
subtly sinking into a shallower slowing synchrony,
where breathing becomes
Life’s breath breathing me,
and through each guiding our way home.
As the sun appears to set in the west,
I find my own rest in my grandmother’s house amidst these rolling hills
by the flowing Susquehanna
where the post office would say
I have never lived,
yet where life and love has woven
a timeless spacious home ever with me,
even now,
wherever I go.

—Meredith Lowry

Excerpted from “Essential Astonishments: Poetic Reflections for Awakening” by Gina Mazza (November 1, 2023). Available on Amazon and booksellers worldwide. LINK TO ORDER: https://www.amazon.com//dp/B0CLKW8JJ9/