Goodbye Poem for My Father

I see you standing up, slowing unwinding the years,

Shoulders no longer bowed beneath weight

Confused, you say, damn, what am I supposed to do now?

And I say, I’ll be home soon and will guide you away.

 

Inside I shake my head, you can’t believe you’re freed

Freed from providing the wall of security around us all.

Loving us means you stand up to the threat from outside

Securing us with your love, your work, your time.

 

Sick for so long, you can’t believe your hands are free

No knots clogging inside. Outside, so ghostly unreal,

like a memory of self when you could laugh, hug, tease.

Watching, I feel the shifting land move about begin to sway

 

All the dangers of life are coming, more dead and dying.

Yet, I can’t grieve at your loss, you belong to memory.

You define the domain, ideal father, father of mine.

Farmer hat on head, tilling the fields, mending the engines.

 

Pain no longer stains you. Weariness no longer clogs eyes.

Your father leans on his car, then hugs you back to home.

There’s grandma, there’s the family of past, gathering

Paying due, yet the light doesn’t come into your heart.

 

Your heart is still with us. Old time soldier blocking the way.

Old time father, insisting on restraint. Old time father,

grease in his hands, paint on his pants, an airplane at side.

Best friend grinning because you still haven’t caught on.

 

The joke is on you. You’re freed now, to be yourself anywhere,

Free of gravity, freed to laugh and laugh and tease

all the little girls of your heart, all the ones needing hugs,

all yours if you just unfurl your wings and arise.

 

Missing you already, Sheri