Roots and Wings: Gifts from Parents

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6680-9

Roots and Wings: Gifts from Parents is a book of poems about bedrock gifts from parents. While personal, these poems also touch the universal. Shadow is acknowledged, the the accent is on shining. 91 pages.

Can It Be Time Already?

Ah, Earth, can it be time already
for you to fold back into yourself
the immensity of your gift of my father?
Can it be time already
for my eyes to yield jewels of sorrow
for the incomprehensible loss of him,
for my heart to bid adieu
to his towering kind presence?
A son knows it has to come,
the finality some day of his father's departing,
but can it be time already?

Beneficiary Yet

One of the achings over my father's passing
is knowing my daughter will grow up untutored
by the truthfulness and the gentleness,
the reliability and the whimsy,
of her Granddaddy
except insofar as these his dearest gifts
come to be so embedded in those he steadfastly loved,
like her daddy,
that those he in turn steadfastly loves,
like his daughter,
will be beneficiary yet
of her Granddaddy's dearest gifts.

After My Father Stopped Breathing

After my father stopped breathing
and the three of us had time with him alone,
mother reached out to my brother, then to me,
(knowing our pain and our need)
and held us with suddenly strong arms.
It's like right away she assumed his strength,
did what he would do were she to have gone first,
be a support to his sons.
Many are my mother's gifts,
but none in my heart's memory stands out
more potent or more precious
than in that timeless moment when our world stood still
and her spirit stood tall
after my father stopped breathing.

Comforting Reprieve

To say we both love flowers
barely scratches the surface.
For her they've been comfort and passion
to sustain her across a lifetime.
For me, suffused with her sensitivity,
they take away with their beauty my breath,
feed with their fragrance my soul,
stand forth each a living reenactment
of the resplendent Earth blossom.
For both of us ruing the chasm
created by world views worlds apart,
flowers are always a comforting reprieve.
Ah, to walk with my mother still
through the magical kingdom we both call her garden.