MY FATHER COMES BACK FROM THE GRAVE

MY FATHER COMES BACK FROM THE GRAVE

MY FATHER COMES BACK FROM THE GRAVE

I think you must contrive to turn this stone
                         on your spirit to lightness.

                                            Ten years.
           And you, among all the things of the earth he took

to heart—they weren’t so many after all—bent nearly
                         to breaking with daily

                                            griefs. The grass
           beneath our feet. Poor blades. So

leaned on for their wavering homiletic (pressed for
                         paltry, perpetual,

                                            raiment, return,
           the look-for-me every child appends to absence) it’s

a wonder they keep their hold on green. Come back
                         to me as grass beneath

                                            my feet. But he
           inclined to different metaphors.


                                                                          Your neighbor,

the young one, the one with two small boys, the one
                         who knew

                                            what to do when the
           gelding had foundered and everyone else was sick

with fear, can no longer manage the stairs on his own.
                         The wayward

                                            cells (proliferant,
           apt) have so enveloped the brain stem that

his legs forget their limberness. The one
                         intelligence

                                            driving it all. The one
           adaptable will-to-be-ever-unfolding that recklessly

weaned us from oblivion will
                         as recklessly have done

                                            with us. Shall the fireweed
           lament the fire-eaten meadow? Nothing

in nature (whose roots make a nursery of ash) (but
                         we . . . ) so

                                            parses its days in dread.


           And in that other thing,                distinguishing

the species that augments itself with tools.
                         With

                                            drill bits in
           the present case, with hammer, saw,

and pressure-treated two-by-eights: a ramp
                         for the chair

                                            that wheels the one
           who cannot walk. He will not live to use

it much, a month perhaps, but that
                         part, O

                                            my carpenter, you
           have never stooped to reckon. Now

the father, where does he come in? Whose
                         cigarette,

                                            whose shot glass, whose
           broad counsel at the table saw (‘I told

you not to do that’) ever
                         freighted a daughter’s learning.

                                            Whose work
           was the world of broken things and a principle

meant to be plain. The grass is mown? The people
                         in the house may hold

                                            their heads up. Not?
           A lengthening reproach. And thus

the shadow to your every move. The cough,
                         the catch, continuo: the engine

                                            that breaches your scant four hours
           of sleep. And what should you see (still

sleeping) as you look for the source of the sound?
                         Our father on the mower making

                                            modest assault
           on the ever-inadequate-hours-of-the-day, as

manifest in your neglected
                         lawn. Fed up, no doubt. Confirmed

                                            in his private opinions. But
           knightly in his fashion and—it’s this

I want to make you see—
                         in heaven to be called upon.