The Chair

(This is a poem I wrote several years ago. Someday I'd like to write a short novel based on this.)

They talked and laughed -
Like crazy kids, grandpa said -
As wind swept the porch of the tiny town,
And they watched, she from her chair
With grandpa standing near,
As the desert sky - swept and swirled
Like a child's finger painting -
Filled with birds shooting
Into the round, red sun, and darkness
Put it's stubborn child to bed
And the sun behind naked mountains hid.
Then like giddy soldiers
They shared their battle of the day
And grandpa would such stories tell!
Then when telling was done,
They'd carry the chair toward home and bed.
The years swirled and swept by
And still year after year with their chair
Talking and laughing they climbed -
Like the warm sand they drifted -
Up the worn path to the top of the hill.
Now grandpa was the one to sit
And she watched quietly as his life faded
Like a vanishing dust cloud.
He ought to move, she thought aloud,
A little closer to where she lived
But he just nodded his shiny head
And watched the stars come out instead.