Day 336

December 2, 2022

Trying to pay attention to what's below the armor.

 

My Dad Part 1

It isn’t his death I mourn today

It’s his first born child,

his smart, talented daughter

caught by the same chemical

combination he had, he owed

to his mother, the same

affliction that removed her

from a balanced life;

kept her in a constant rocking;

the  back and forth she tried to manage.

 

I mourn her death

I try to celebrate her

I try to lift those so wonderful

characteristics, the laughter,

the music, the brain power.

I try to hold those

times that made me feel a dignity

alongside an older sister

 

I try to hold up

ancestors greeting her

as she soars through

a rainbow to a place

where her physical chemistry

no longer enslaves her,

holds her shackled to her pain.

 

I honor her place in my journey

I honor the role she never could accept.

I honor her talent, occasional taste of savant,

ability to finesse the final trump.

 

I also claim the new bruise

the anger that took flight

the sense of safety her bed leant

me after she went to Barnard.

Her things, her smell, her voice;

all of this combined in a

knot on the side of my heart

leaving a quiet, dull ache.

 

Farewell, adieu

be kind. 

Once again I reversed the photos.  Ducks were in the canal, they're so much fun.  The sunset was just beginning when I arrived and they were all feeding.  There were geese and swan, mergansers and gulls.  There were other ducks too, the white one with the bob head...

Lunch, a fancy lunch with Herb and Trace, always makes me happy and today the golf course was so green, remarkably green..