Mariela Griffor

Green

To pay back for what grandfather did for me
I would need at least a couple of life times.
The last time I saw him
was at the airport Merino Benitez,
in Santiago, Chile in October of 1985.
He was tall and handsome.
For a moment he carried me away from
the group formed by grandmother and my
mother in law and her daughter. He gave me a hug
and put a green roll of bill in my right hand.
Take care of yourself,
and let me know where you will be.
He cried, it was the first time in twenty years
I saw grandfather cry.
We will always love you.
he said drying his tears with a white handkerchief
he always had in his pocket.
Don't cry, I will be back soon I promised him.
You will not be back soon and this is the last time
we see you he told me with serenity.
I remembered his words this past Sunday
talking to my mother over the phone, she told me
she was visiting him at the cemetery.
So strange. I told her.
I saw him last night , this time he was laughing
with Elena, my youngest.
He visited me very often.
He was right.
I was never back there.
I never stopped meeting him here
He visits me before bad things happen, as a warning,
he brings me peace when I need it.
I meet him at the rise of the sun and at luminous
nights of full moon.
More often in dreams and
in the face of Lincoln that appear in the bills
of the green roll he put in my hand.



Also from Mariela Griffor:
Detroit

Contributor Bio

Mariela Griffor was born in the city of Concepcion in southern Chile. She attended the University of Santiago and the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She left Chile for an involuntary exile in Sweden in 1985. She and her American husband returned to the United States in 1998 with their two daughters. They live in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. She is co-founder of The Institute for Creative Writers at Wayne State University and Publisher of Marick Press and curator of the Poets Follies Reading Series at the Ewald library in Grosse Pointe, MI. Her work has appeared in periodicals across Latin America and the United States. Mariela Holds a BA in Journalism and is currently enrolled in a MFA Program in Poetry at New England College. She is author of Exiliana and House. Mariela is the honorary Consul of Chile in Michigan.