My Austrian grandmother
stands by a window
listening to my shovel scrape
the snow as it falls
By tomorrow
the jagged path
will disappear again
into smoothness,
but she worries
that school children,
small and wrapped in wool
may lose their way
if sidewalk slides
into snowdrift
Tonight when this work
is done
I will sit in stocking feet
at a table steaming with
liver dumplings and broth,
sip homebrew
until I feel numb and good
Grandfather will smoke Luckies
by an old Philco,
half hearing Vaughn Monroe
sing, “Shine on…
Shine on, harvest moon
Up in the sky…”
She will turn on the oven
to give me warmth,
lean towards me on an elbow
and tell again
how poor they were
in the old country