“Pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons …”
—Henry Beston
1.
Of surrender or denial, surrender and denial
what voice will you offer to the dead
what alphabet to the suffering.
My father’s head
dis-
embodied— two
years in memory
a meridian drawn down
my daughter’s spine.
What location to turn
to—here there is always
the return—inevitable
first song.
2.
Nothing is as we
left it. February
returns—
time without odor
the door removed
from its frame
Judas bush beneath the window …
cold brown earth
around the rim of ash. I
scattered him there—and watched
as rain soaked down.
3.
Merely to submit to
days as they come. A is for
Ash Wednesday—St. Anthony—
a man’s brow smeared
at dusk.
4.
What can we remember—
April rains
her tummy hurts she says.
White belly
underneath blue
“long days passed like this.”
5.
Outside and in. The
child’s scream
“shivering with shame …”
a mirror
cast back 40 years.
6.
God is in
shadow—
we can only
ask meager recompense—
say what you will.
7.
“larks of heaven perch and nothing”
Your happiness—false
starts—
trapping sorrow
& joy together.
We remain so
ignorant—
mired in loss.
8.
“if you don’t
want us who will …”
My daughter’s voice
raised—afraid or
ashamed to
say, “you don’t have to
punish us … we
only know so much”
9.
Dead limbs and
cardinal flowers. I envisioned
“the moment of trees & the
suddenness among
thwarted winds”
In the briefest way … asking you here.
10.
Walking ahead
we risk
losing the way—her
voice in mind.
Sun at the water’s edge
—capitalize each first letter—
down to the level
with water
I chastised no one
& turned—shamelessly—
on a pivot of vast
immured time.
11.
Her head sunk
into me—
my daughter takes her
hand—runs it
down my leg—
is odd—to be taken care
of— fatherless now— here
at all.
12.
“That’s the day
penciled out”
over and done—scribbled
between the lines—
“Father … where
you going?”
13.
What did she
mean—“There could
be such a thing as
too much feeling”
Following others into the world
back again to these
several rooms—
My heart isn’t
vacant—no longer
virtuous. One’s body
inclining past 40—
resolute
at each passing wave.
14.
“The crow wish’d
every thing was
black—
the owl
that every
thing was white”
On the floor
atop news
papers—
arms loosely
falling against
smooth grain skin.
15.
Morning the body
is hers—or mine
alone—seen
or unseen—“I see
your pee-pee”
In childhood
physicality without
shame—sweet
transience—mortal
light of
daybreak—
16.
Yesterday you came
back—
vigilant in your time
—not to say
we are healed—but transposed
as if you knew that accord
could be reached …
I studied your face
as you knelt
beside my daughters—
sinecure of the
feminine—
clot of shadow.
17.
“I didn’t mean
to say any thing—
you hadn’t given me
the chance, it was
just silence—”
A form of greeting
nude in the starlight
endless wild uprush
of your hand
in parting.
18.
A cloud
cusp of silver
downdrafts of wind—
season come to its
close—
“a half-moon
over lights in the west—
shadows of birch
against the sky.”
—20 February 2005