'Father..'

So frail.
Nut oil brown still from three score and near ten vital
sun soaked, swallow filled summers;
As if in spiteful ridicule.
Now broken and weary and spent, diseased and wretched and
burgled by fate of its very being.
Yet still that spirit.
Free as an Irish mountain zephyr
yet bound tight by chains of duty;
Holding me fast in its shadow yet letting me run free,
childlike, in the gentle spring rains;
Standing sentinel over my grazed knees and muddied elbows,
torn trousers and berry stained shirts...

So bent.
Knobbled bones, ungainly, disjointed, clattering
unhappily within their puckered, parchment skin;
Loose and awkward.
Like broken sticks, dry and withered, slipping haphazard
and unwieldy in a corner shop carrier bag.
Yet still that will.
Cold iron resolve, unyielding, granite hard that asked
nought and in return gave nothing in quarter;
A will that supported my child’s fragile, careless world
on its back like a cloth capped Atlas;
Gathering up, unspoken, my mangled bicycles and broken teeth,
lost shoes and bloodied coats...

So weak.
Spent and enfeebled, muscles strain, once more
to pull erect their rapid failing scaffoldings;
Failing they fall, desperate.
Spilling and clattering, falling loose like an
abandoned, spastic, string cut marionette.
Yet still that strength.
That potent wraith, hard muscled, all steel sinewed
and wind and weatherwork tanned;
Tossing me high aloft, carefree in cloudless skies
rich with warmth and summer scents;
Chiding, unknown, my tormentors; Standing fortress,
against the storms of a young, fragile life...

So weary.
The skeletal fingers that clutch feebly at mine
cold, mechanical, their flesh withered;
Holding reluctantly to life.
Reaching out for release, for some small mercy left in passing,
for freedom from their tormentor.
Yet still that dignity.
That head up jut jawed, cannon barrel gazed, proudly
arrogant, hard fisted and defiant;
Parting burly, heaving crowds; Cutting them like ploughed
snow to suffer me safe passage;
Bulwark to the tidal surges of childhood, taking the breakers
on his back that I might play in the wash...

So tired.
Tremulous morphine laden lids, pallid, heavy leaden
shutters dragged open by sheer dint of will;
Lift eyes straining now for focus.
Shining the sun found lights and shadows,
of a last precious day, into a rapidly clouding mind.
Yet still that light.
Burning now, in eyes that lit with laughter, took
tears at kin’s passing and melted in love;
Eyes that blazed once iron furnace red with anger
and sparked yet with a thousand Erin stars;
Watching always, yet invisible, knowing, seeing,
forgiving or punishing; Each in its place...

So sad.
A gentle hand on my forearm, as my tears run,
wetting the waiting shrouds of hospital corner sheets;
”Why the tears boy?” Concerned. Compassionate.
”I don’t like to see you this way.” A child again,
the pain of imminent loss torrential, all consuming.
Yet still that voice.
Still timbred, manly and familiar. Above and apart
from the cancer that consumed him – Untouchable;
”We’ve known each other a long time haven’t we boy?”
Words. Man to boy. Man to man. Father to son;
”And we didn’t always like each other.”
As my heart ached to bursting; My chest too small to contain it.

”But you were always my Dad - and I always loved you...”
My father left us that afternoon - I miss him still...

© Sullivan The Poet 2008

From the collection entitled 'In A Mirror Darkly'