A Father’s Tale

His wife’s death was as easy
As the slow, soft rocking of
Her chair, before the fire.
She died young, she ceased
To rock long before he knew.
He was a busy man.
She was a memory he
Could not call back.

Thus it was that,
At forty-three years
He took up a crayon
And began to draw the
Garden where he played
Hide and seek between
The roses and the trees
When he was seven.
The old paths were dim,
Less sure where they were
Leading, cluttered with
Weeds that seemed useful
In the beginning for
Holding together the soil,
But that grew until
They had taken it up,
Become the soil, become
The fabric and the frame
So that the picture was
Indiscernible, its message
Lost in a memory he
Could not call back.

Rebirth has never been easy.
It took all of his second forty years—
He was a fortunate man—
To pull the weeds,
To get at the roots that
Suck and twine and curl
With the working of the earth,
To get them out
In time to rock before the fire
A few more hours
As the child he had been,
Drawing hides and seeks
And clean leading paths.

Until one day he ceased to rock,
Slow and soft before the fire,
Where I sat stupidly trying
To draw a memory
I could not call back.