<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild</div><div class=""> <span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class="">after Matthew Olzmann </i></span> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Oh button, don’t go thinking we loved pianos</div><div class="">more than elephants, air conditioning more than air. </div><div class="">We loved honey, just loved it, and went into stores</div><div class="">to smell the sweet perfume of unworn leather shoes.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Did you know, on the coast of Africa, the Sea Rose</div><div class="">and Carpenter Bee used to depend on each other?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The petals only opened for the Middle C their wings</div><div class="">beat, so in the end, we protested with tuning forks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">You must think we hated the stars, the empty ladles,</div><div class="">because they conjured thirst. We didn’t. We thanked</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">them and called them lucky, we even bought the rights</div><div class="">to name them for our sweethearts. Believe it or not,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">most people kept plants like pets and hired kids</div><div class="">like you to water them, whenever they went away.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And ice! Can you imagine? We put it in our coffee</div><div class="">and dumped it out at traffic lights, when it plugged up</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">our drinking straws. I had a dog once, a real dog,</div><div class="">who ate venison and golden yams from a plastic dish.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">He was stubborn, but I taught him to dance and play</div><div class="">dead with a bucket full of chicken livers. And we danced</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">too, you know, at weddings and wakes, in basements</div><div class="">and churches, even when the war was on. Our cars</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">we mostly named for animals, and sometimes we drove</div><div class="">just to drive, to clear our heads of everything but wind.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- J.P. Grasser</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>