Burning Garden

by Rabbi Sonja K. Pilz, PhD

My grandfather was an unusual man
In that he was a carpenter
Who died with all of his fingers.

Twice he burnt the skin off his face
In front of the fires,
And then put the potatoes to sleep in the winter.

His skin smelled like onions and sawdust;
A melancholic,
Towering next to his wife.

My grandmother smelled like hand cremes and ovens,
Her palms were soft,
Her fingers cracked from work.

When those two were dead
I took the rings that kept them together.
I would put them on my fingers at times. 

You and I have cut them to pieces;
They were melted down, filled, and joined;
Their names still gleaming under layers of gold.