Читать книгу Strangers - Rob Taylor - Страница 8

At three, on vacation, my mother and I alone

on an aerial tour (two seats, no exceptions),

my father waving until he was very small

then unfolding the paper from under his armpit,

I wept with the depth of the assured—

the Ruahine Range irrelevant below.

My mother asked, coddled, pleaded.

The pilot offered ridiculous faces,

an early return. Only in the sight

of my father, rising from a bench beside

the helipad, hand raised again in greeting,

was my world, pulled apart, reassembled.

Nine years later his hand, warm,

was thirty minutes later cold. I watched

him wheeled away. I held his ashes

and wondered where to put them.

And I waited for his return.

I wait still, whatever sense it makes.

Alright, okay, we do not live forever. Our works

are lost and are not found. There is no consolation.

But, Elise, I read your poems today.

Each rose and greeted me as if everything

was normal, as if my return had been expected.

And in this act I saw my father.

It makes no sense. You would be strangers

if not for this. But I saw him, Elise.

He was your poems.

He was waving and becoming larger.