A Last Good-bye

(for my father)

morning is a requiem to tranquillity,
in his bedroom cathedral of cruel light
pain stalks awareness like a cat
leaps, claws nerves
can’t move,
nailed to the cross of another day

get out of bed
gets half way
I must

I can’t, falls back
and cries,

lays back
and
sighs

fumbles under his pillow for an antidote of memories,
stories and photographs,
there’s one when he could walk
hear,
see
a world more than intersecting walls

tries to get up from,
trapped,
in the paralysis between vertical and horizontal

more than
photographs

can’t

nailed to the cross of a another day

today,
like any day

gets out of bed

has to ...
gets half way
gets .... half ... way

can’t

remembers ...

when he was a soldier
an officer,
the Polish cavalry re-wrote Cervantes
a thousand don quixotes
their horses crushed by German tanks
a thousand unknown soldiers
seeds in furrows of blood
their memory flowers in his eye

shot he fell
somehow survived,
a prisoner of war, then refugee
selling bootleg vodka and stolen cigarettes
reading gogol by candlelight
dead souls,
playing jazz ...

ah,
... it all falls through a hole ...
getting old is getting more holes in your head
for more of you
to fall through

but sunlight is irresistible
even through eyes shut against pain,
through near deaf ears
hears carillon birdsong,
unfolds the impenetrable mystery of hope

unfurls his heart,

arms open
he greets his son,
grandson
beloved granddaughter
they never age...
my wife is beautiful,

smiles,

remembers,

children, beauty, love,

immortality is
impermanence,
like music
the next note will always preserve
what has gone before,
what will be ...

gets half way

remembers ...

his trumpet, piano,
jazz at the Trocadero
Monk, the Duke, Cool

sits up
doesn’t fall

the next step
finds the rhythm,
gets up

must find that trumpet and blow

he will ...

music,
like children
seeds of our immortality,
fruit of memories.

walking now, with feet of clouds
a smile
crescendo,
now a laugh,
fades into light and silence,
a receding shadow,
a last goodbye