This Is What We Do
His sole brother will be another year older this week.
So my father will drive headlong into the north Texas
wind to sit across from him and honor his face.
No doubt they will speak of pickups and children
until those topics grow quiet. Then their talk will seep
into the porous ground of memory both recent and past.
Two older men talking fondly of older things,
the essence of why they want to be together.
Before my father leaves that booming town he’ll
wind beyond its frantic highway to the still cemetery where
his parents sleep. He will go there as all mourners do,
repeating Easter’s mistake, seeking the living among the dead.
My father knows this but still he’ll go. To kneel and
to place fresh flowers, an assertion in favor of the rising and against the fallenness of time.
to place fresh flowers, an assertion in favor of the rising and against the fallenness of time.
The weight you balance on the backs of these words, John–forget the wordsmith. It takes a wordmason to lay them out revealing the force of their structure.
My father lamented at his brother’s funeral, “I’m the last one left.” I am grateful that your dad is making this trip.
Thank you, Sheila. Our parents are the tallest trees in our forest…once they fall, then its just us.
The tallest trees in our forest. That is such a great way to put it. Thank you, John.
John, the practice you mention is one we’ve chosen in our family as well…honoring those who have gone, as “an assertion in favor of the rising and against the fallenness of time.”
Your ending lines often leave me stunned.