Re: [ZESTPoets] more fathers...

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:30:19 -0800

jane
 
liked the old man
 
can i make a suggestion or two?

 
On 11/15/05, jane bhandari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
reading the little collection of poems about father I was moved to post my own. My father died after suffering strokes and Parkinson's for several years. I would see him roughly twice a year, so the decline was more marked. This poem is really a painting: I have a photograph of him in exactly this pose.

OLD MAN, IN CHAIR   
 
He sat in a chair by the window,
Dressed in black, as for a funeral.
The slanting winter sun lit up his hair
And the thin hands; all else was in shadow.
As if listening to a distant voice
That we could not hear, he stared at the sky
Captured in the small panes of the window.
The sky stared back blankly, reflected
In those empty eyes. I waited,
Wondering what to say to a man
So imprisoned by his deafness
That he had almost ceased to speak,
Had immured himself in silence.
Suddenly he came alive: Do you know,
He said, eyes bright, laughing,
Someone rang me from France to tell me
He was going down the road to the pub.
For a moment he was animated.
Then he relapsed. Who had rung him?  
He wouldn't say, remained silent,
And once more gazed out of the window
With empty eyes, listening for a phone-call,
And a voice that only he could hear.
 
 
This second poem was written at about the same time as my other 'dead leaf' poems.
 
DEAD LEAVES
 
I think of dead leaves
Piling up in corners,
Filling gutters,
Soaking up rain and bad weather,
Lying sodden and useless.
 
The old man my father
Buried under the dry leaves
Of myriad small strokes.
Until the last leaf falls
Into silence.
 
And the dead leaves shuffle,
Until the silence is filled
With the whisper of death,
The rattle of dry twigs
The rattle of Death's heels
 
Approaching
 

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