Father and Son


Finally I've learned forgiveness at this age,
For your mistakes that crippled me,
Which I've repeated.  I have seen far worse.
You made them out of ignorance, not choice.

The rage I had, the wisdom that I lacked
Amaze me now, as if a page
That I was reading suddenly caught fire
And images of you tumbled from the smoke,
Words you mumbled when you were very tired,

Dying, your hand in mine, that long last night,
Both knowing you had lost all breath to fight.
"It's late," you said, "I don't want you to go.
But you have to leave me." So I sighed

And, like a child in winter, buttoned up my coat.
"I love you," we said simultaneously.
"Kiss your son for me," who then was four months old.
The next day you were found unsaveable and cold.

So if I try to save you on this page
And if you try to save me from your realm,
Eons away, distances so vast
It seems a microscopic stage our past

Of father and son struggling through myth
Which we enacted witlessly and sick,
Dumb, irreconcilable, compelled
To make this seeming paradise a hell

In which we sleptwalked like the shade you are,
The shadow of a man I hoped to be.
Why were we burdened, little you and me
Or, as you often said, "How can this be?"