Your small slate-blue eyes staring up at me, born in grace,
Spring clouds streaking across a pale gray sky, storm with grace.
Bittersweet blue beauty that skipped a generation,
So hopeful and mournful. My plain brown eyes shorn of grace.
Did she have a twinkling giggle like you as a child?
A daughter’s puzzle unsolved, forever forlorn grace.
I hoped you’d share more than stormy eyes, but hushed secrets,
And my embarrassing teenage stories in sworn grace.
Her skin’s made sallow by fluorescent nursing home lights,
Yet your shining eyes mirror each other, reborn grace.
Nina, is there still time to bind these precious kin’s threads?
Grandmother and granddaughter, in sickness, torn grace.