Cloud-armed man (abridged)

My Nina* speaks in my most Joyful Mind.

Her voice intones a tale about a gigantic Book somewhere.

Tiny am I;  "Look! Up there! See?"  I do! 

                 Faeries paint the moving, morphing, tanger-orange Sky;

the rolling Artwork billows: in, then out, with Clouds;

smokey fluffed constellations dance
a child's chimeric castle dream

"Wow, Neen!"

 ~~~~~~~

A huge, amorphous, Cloud-armed man,
(his face chameleons with the Sky),
fills the entire Evening mural;
his kind chubby face crinkles into secret, childlike smiles;
(he can't stop smiling, can he?!)

I skip; I twirl; I hop 'round Nina in uncontrolled glee -
his enormous multi-coloured eyes hold a joke he shares with me!
!!!!
I am tiny.
So bemused I feel to see!
What a crinkly, wrinkly, happy face! - I giggle!

Somebody peeks between old trees;
(ancient Oaks and elderly Elms line the street where I became;
immortal ferns caress the Evening Sky;
a crab-apple Tree in our very own yard tosses tiny roseate apples to Neen,
a Gift for her, a Gift to small bellies;
She will bake her yummy pies; ("with walnuts, Neen, please?")

My Nina sings, "He holds a big book;
if you're a good girl, he will grant you one more year
to enjoy this Life." (I'm only now getting to know Life, Neen.
I'm five years old; is that so long a Time?")

I try to imagine the big man in the mural holding a book,
but no matter how I turn my head, move my child's wide eyes,
I cannot comprehend: "a man can have this power!?"
but I feel a bit of fear, (because I love my Nina very much...)

She is telling me one of her strange, fantastic stories?
(but she seems more serious than usual.)

I ask her,
"How can a Cloud-armed man hold a book?"
She ruffles my hair, soothes me;
She sings, (I always think she's singing):
"Shana maidele, you're a good girl. Don't worry about anything.
Enjoy the Evening Air; isn't it beautiful to be here?"

And yes, to be with you, my Nina, is all I really needed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

note:
****Nina is my maternal grandmother, in whose house I grew from tiny, to age nineteen; she and my grandfather, (who arrived in the US from his native (at that time Ottoman-Occupied) Jerusalem) at the age of four, had lived in Brooklyn, where my grandmother was born. My grandparents decided to move upstate to the Catskill Mts.; my parents, Brooklyn natives, themselves, decided to join them. My grandparents purchased a huge, two-story house, which I believe was constructed in the 1910's. I grew up (if ever I really did) :) , in the larger, downstairs apartment, with my parents and my two younger siblings; my grandparents inhabited the smaller (more suited to them) apartment upstairs. I spent an enormous part of my growing years in the company of my grandparents...We were two families, and we were (and always will be) one family...

I am so grateful to have been able to know my grandparents, on two sides!... for so long...