Father

by

Sullivanthepoet

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. Burgled by fate of its very being.
Yet still that spirit.
At once loose and hard shackled, 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 hapahazard and unwieldy in a corner shop carrier bag.
Yet still that will.
Cold iron resolve, unyielding, granite hard that asked none, and in return gave nothing in quarter,
that supported my child's fragile, careless world on its back like a cloth capped Atlas,
gathering up, unspoken, my broken 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, 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, proud, 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, 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, familiar.Above and apart from the cancer that consumed him - Untouchable.
"We've known each other a long time haven't we?" Words. Man to boy. Man to man. Father to son.
"And we didn't always like each other..." My heart aching, 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...

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Criminality
by: Joyce Hemsley
from: Sunderland, England, UK

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