When I was a kid, my grandfather lived
a few streets away on his own.
He mumbled a lot and was fast going deaf
so conversation was always prone

to be difficult. Then I mastered the making
of meaningless noises aping the tone
of sensible speech and although I was faking,
it was only apparent to me alone.

So now that my grandson is starting to speak
and I sometimes can't understand what he says
(despite having asked for several repeats),
I do just the same and he seems not to guess

that I'm only pretending to know what he said,
encouraging him to keep prattling instead.
But I sometimes consider how long will it be
before he is doing the same thing to me.