I held my father’s hand once more last night, but only in a dream. 

I did not see his face or hear his voice or recognize a nod, but his

ever-gentleness stood to sooth the unease of muddled senses.

 

Almost thirty quick years have gone since I stood by his bed.

Did I, at first, hold his hand? A white cloth, folded in half,

lay over his mouth for moisture; rare tears traced crow’s-feet

to his pillow and I, new to dying, wondered if he cried from fear. 

But through the muffling wetness, struggling not to sob,

“Your mother…”  And then I understood, “I will take care of her.”

I promised; only then…I remember, now…did I take his hand.

 

The hand I held last night was not that of thirty years before;

his hands, in life, had the square bluntness of his days of labor.

Always, he carried a pocketknife to turn the grease and grit

from beneath his nails into minute, curled strings of grime.

The hand I held in my dream was only his because I knew

and not recognition by touch; the hand I held was feminine,

covered with the sheltered, thin skin of one needing protection.

 

I’ve pondered the paradox for days, wondering why the hand

was his, but not; time could not have altered to such extreme,

a touch etched in memory.  Believing only in our faulty minds,

I can only conclude that I, so desiring that my father

might know I have kept my promise, conjured a dream,

a visitation; the hand I knew as his is my mother’s I hold today.

This is new, written over a couple of days and based on a real dream.  I tend to overwork things until I have removed any sense of freshness and spontaneity which they might have contained, so, I’m trying to work on that. Only within the last couple of years have I experienced dreams about real people.  This is new for me; aging not only changes our bodies but our perceptions and, apparently, our subconscious musings.

There’s a simple delight in knowing

a grackle in flight by the tilt of his tail

or an iambic line by its sweet flow.

There’s simple delight in knowing

how to string and break beans or

that a child can’t feign affection.

There’s simple delight in knowing

that its ciphering itself that counts

and not the sum of the equation.

Those we left by the road still stagger among us;

we lean on their diminished bodies as we move.

Talc-tasting air, smelling of urine and hot stone,

burns our skin, shriveling our memories of them.

The whisper has passed; this road is closed to us.

This ditch of stubble will be our home for an hour,

a day, forever, until this throng moves us,

forces us up to walk, again, this endless road.

Ahead, those green hills rejected our pleas.

The distant canopies’ chattering fell silent,

fell to fear, as we gazed, as one, with one breath held,

and another stone was thrown to bruise the heart.

This child on the sharp rack of my hip

stares with eyes passive as stones.

My child of bone in his gray flesh bag,

stares passed wanting, never cries, only

clenches the one ragged wall of his home.

This was originally titled Refugees and was reproduced here with a few changes from a copy dated October, 2003

first poem…a guttural moan of awe;

an appreciation of phenomenon:

of shimmers on febrile plains,

of fallen cloud underbellies ripped,

spilling mist to chattering canopies,

of a sensuous line jerked from chaos,

of beast in flight or majestic pose,

of scents of the mull or heated stone,

of the body in heat or love or both,

of colors, so startling, only sky,

in absolute stillness, could hold them.

 

 

Across our mutual fence, salutations

were swapped twice in three long years.

one time, surplus tomatoes were offered

and accepted but with visible unease;

he looked as if I had presented bad fruit.

His meek response, a nodding weak smile.

In May, during a storm, a limb crashed

across our fence; searching our canopies

of oak, the origin was undetermined, so I

claimed the splintered bough to chop & burn.

No mention of the damaged fence. “O.K.

and thanks.” he said, walking away, for good.

In grass uncut six months or more, Frosty, 

almost hidden from view by weeds long dead,

sorely desires to melt away with all hope

of retrieval loss.  Santa reclines on matted,

desiccated grass, face turned from passerby;

sun bleached now, but with a flush of shame 

adding blush to fat cheeks of plastic mold.

 The wading pool, deflated, soldered tight

to the ground by heat and grim, once rang

with peals of childish glee, making me grin,

from the kid I saw with Mom, herself,

a large, redheaded girl, white as Frosty.

 Beneath two windows still sits the swings

predictably askew.  Limp chains, devoid

of seats, hang purely plumb, Heaven to Hell,

perfect parallelograms aligning Here and There,

Want and Need; impervious to debate or fault.