As the sky brightens,
our children flee the porch.
Through the trees,
I follow their tumblesaulting, like monkeys in the pasture.
You remain behind the screen
in the mist that blurs your face, crisscrosses your eyes.
Your plea through the distant thunder
calls me back. I reach unfolding fingers
for you to follow, pause and breathe.
You move outside, small,
bare steps avoid the bounty of the rain.
Your pounding memory searches for running children,
darts among the branches, listens to the howling
wind.
As the clouds clear the sky from gray
to sunset scarlet, again, I wait
through the pounding, my back to the children
and the trees. I damn the storm, the barbed wire between us,
want to scrape napalm into your memory
to ease your pain and mine.
As one last lightning strikes, I wonder if I can go on.
I clearly see that neither your laughing children
nor my patient love can hold you
from this moment. Still, the sky clears,
our bed stays warm, our children grow,
fathered by that piece of you we own,
uncursed.
[JACQUELINE M. LORING, pub. in From Both Sides Now New York 1988, p. 213] |