Dad
Dec 3 2014

In loving memory of Patrick Albert Hart Green (1922 – 2014)

On the night of my father’s death
I walked the dog
in a full moon
in December's early dark.
The sky was black, and bottomless,
and I looked up
through the cold clear air
at infinity.
The world under ice
asleep.

He spent his final breath
in a hospital bed
under harsh fluorescent lights,
machines beeping
a salt-water drip.
He'd been leaving us bit-by-bit
until this, his final exit;
but had a good death, at peace,
if there ever is
such a thing.

He was raised by a stern father,
and, like him, was not demonstrative
in his love.
He would be judged by what he did,
a good man
a rock of constancy.
I, too, do not show emotion,
which some would think of as cold.
But I contain myself
because my feelings are fierce
and control is comforting.
Still, I regret not holding more
the loss of touch
the squandered years.

He leaves his bride
who was at his side
over 50 years.
They talk about love in old age
as attachment, drift.
But after half a century
they were still besotted, smitten,
a story of love
that will persist
even after death.

In another day
the moon will wane,
the nights
grow even longer.
But at the end of December
the light resumes,
in the month of his birth
the world made new.
So the heavens turn, the moon waxes,
and the earth, on its axis
circles back
as all things come to pass.

I told him once
he was now the patriarch.
He seem bemused, and a little proud
to have come to this,
the youngest son, a self-made man.
But he was,
and it was him
we counted on.

My older brother
will now take his place
as head of the clan.
The generations unfold
and we grow imperceptibly older,
take on roles
that leave us feeling unworthy.
But this is the way of the world;
in sickness, and health
in births, and deaths,
in the fullness of time
and the final breath.

The moon has almost set
stars begin appearing.
They do not waver, in the arctic air
their light is laser clear.
Which is how I feel
in the bracing cold
of a winter night
when I put to rest my fears.

A good man
who lived a good life
and died well.
Which is really the best
one could hope for.