2 Sept 19 Never Having Lost a Father

Beyond the days of visitations and funerals, most of us don’t care for talking about the details of death: what people who were present at the death did and said, what were the dying person’s final words, if any; how amazingly difficult to face and talk with the bereaved. Few stories are told around the table about the incidents and details attendant to a death. Here one such is told.

Never Having Lost a Father

                                    Never having lost a father  

                                                yet a father of two when you died

                                    You fell hard, seeping blood, coating our mother’s kitchen floor

                                                where soon, she swore, she would step no more

                                    Death turned her barren that day, transformed her purpose, smashed her life

                                    She stomped away swearing someone would answer for

                                                this assault – as if a shattered heart could have a wish

                                                            not this, so like a smoking candle wick

                                    So startling, unexpected, as if death surprised you as well

                                                and sent you toppling toward the place where you fell

                                    The red-haired daughter cursed the tiles and said,

                                    “I mean to lay me down upon the damned spot

                                                and hope for one, red drop left of his

                                                            to cling to me, soak and burrow in

                                                            find a way to pierce through my thirsty skin

                                                            bleed through the seven layers that are me.”

                                    Her heart beat against the floor – his shrunk cold 

                                                seized and came apart as its redness bloated, dimmed

                                    

                                    Just as she said, she laid down on the spot

                                                the red-haired daughter of the father who was lost

                                    The downcast child splayed out, swept her arms over the floor’s void

                                                reverencing the space where he fell and died

                                                as if she could unmake a dreadful angel’s deed

                                                her tears falling to floor, each a fecund seed

                                    She laid there long with undone heart

                                                for him gone beyond an unbounded chart

                                    The daughter of the father dead

                                    Still, who never lost a father, brother, or child fair?

                                    See how this father leaves his floor-bound girl circling there?

Background:

Today’s poetry post contains another poem from my collection, Brothering, written in 2010 – 2011, just after my brother’s sudden death. Only now am I resurrecting these pieces and revising them for myself and for you. Why now? Frankly, I lost track of them. I knew they were around somewhere, but I had not taken very good care of where they were located. Why? Too painful? Too shameful to expose the events and people? Too much worry that such a personal experience wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else? Yes. Yes. And yes.

Exploration 1: Do you think it’s appropriate to talk about the events, reactions, and behaviors surrounding a death?

Exploration 2: Two children are mentioned in the first few lines of the poem. Speculate on where the second child is?

Exploration 3: How do you feel about the mother’s reaction to her son’s death?