The Afternoon of My Father's Death

I sit very, very still

in the afternoon

of my father’s death, 

like a naturalist

watching some rare bird

creep along the ground,

teaching her babies how to 

find food, survive, and fly.

Afraid to breathe 

lest I disturb 

this gifted moment, 

I sit frozen in place

unable to move,

just watching

grief do its memorial dance 

in binocular vision.  

I remember the meals

of potato soup we made

when Mom was sick,

and hear again

the screams of my sister

when she wouldn’t eat

and the Depression’s child 

swung his paternal belt.

The last time I saw him 

I fed him potato soup I made

the way he taught me,

only with real butter and cream. 

He instinctively opened his mouth

like a baby bird at Mama’s landing—

our last communion.

But it was my sister 

who was there at the end,

the one hurt most,

Cordelia to his King Lear,

not returning his hurt

that hurt her through raging  storm—

a remarkable, yet unremarked, 

divine compassion.

Having learned well from him,

to just keep working,

my other sister and I 

camouflaged emotion

and went on teaching

to survive predatory time

marching on 

in ambushing guilt.

Yet none of us really learned 

how to fly,

so when Dad fled

his fleshly cage,

my sisters and I 

were free at last 

to flap our wings,

test the wind,

jump out of our limiting beliefs, 

and soar on dreams’ airy streams. 

But still I sit on nesting’s edge

very, very still—

watching.