Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Like Father

All I can do is sit on the couch and cry,
knowing others carry the stronger claim.
Your grief pulls mine into the open, and I’m grateful.
Grateful for generosity enough to share pain
with us all, however derivative our connection.
I need permission to feel. Wittingly or unwittingly,
you give it when you give yourself.
You’re so like your father.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Thoughts on Father's Day

Love them well, those little ones.
Love the mother they’ve known, the wife
they’ve grown accustomed to seeing you embrace.
You can’t shift gears when they leave
and expect they won’t pay a price.
Even forty-year-old children need to know
you are who you’ve always been.
If you are not, then who are they?

Such demons sleep under my pillow,
in sealed boxes, between the pages of books
I haven’t opened in decades.
I can’t escape the fangs and talons
Christmas cards and photo albums conceal;
the wounds that never heal,
yet take me by surprise.

Friday, June 12, 2015

6 Months On, More Or Less

12 June 2015
SB

The tips of my shaggy hair are faded purple.
Brown creeps back in, my normal;
the me that exists with and without you.
I long for normal, but grief doesn't work that way.
You’ll never laugh at my crazy hair,
never take my face in your hands again,
say my full name. No one else uses my full name.

How will I remember it?

George MacDonald

"Home is ever so far away in the palm of your hand, and how to get there it is of no use to tell you. But you will get there; you must get there; you have to get there. Everybody who is not at home, has to go home."

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