Father's Day Archives - Owl Mountain Music, Inc.

He is now treading tenderly
traversing nightly
the pathway of my dreams

At odd moments
my name rings out
in his young, yet-unfeebled voice:
“Steven”

Not angry
nor hurried nor proud
just
“Steven”
a matter-of-fact attention-gatherer.

And I stop, mid-thought,
turning to look over my shoulder
around the next corner
in the midst of my waking reverie
or my busy slumber

And I hearken to the voice
that calls from a self-imposed distance
a gap seldom spanned
a chasm created by
a long train of estranging shovels-full of resentment,
of misunderstanding, of fear, defensiveness and regret.

I hearken and linger
Longingly fingering the memories of his guidance:

-The antiseptic whiff of isopropyl that chased him home
from his daily doses of patient visits
and lingered on the new one
of thick, double-book, storybooks that he
had mail-ordered for me to read
(The Wizard of Oz!)

-The aroma of freshly cut lumber,
the eye-blinking grit of sawdust
spit from a whining, woodshop wheel.

-The ache of sun-burned skin
(chilled by his prescription of
icy dill pickle juice)
from a stooping day of picking rocks found
by his riding roto-tiller.

-The sting of sweat
on the raw pink skin
beneath a newly-torn blister
and that same voice,
in then-seeming harsh reassurance,
” ‘s good–it’ll give you a callous.”

I hearken with wistful sorrow
and run my fingers over the stumbling surface
of one of his impressionistic carvings
fashioned in the community room of the
Community Nursing Home
(his favorite stroke-limited, physical activity
at his last physical address)
in what my sisters and I refer to as his
“Picasso Period.”

I hearken and I pause
trying to fathom
whether I can or should
begin to smoothe surfaces
he began to shave
Before sealing his sculpture
from the elements and the ravages of time
that no longer age his body.

Am I, the surviving son,
capable of completing his work?
Am I, the estranged son
able to carry forth his vision
in even such a private way?
Am I, the eldest offspring
willing to step into his
place in the harness,
yielding him,
these many months,
finally to his cremated rest?

My name, in his voice,
is what I now hear
and what I couldn’t hear
because he couldn’t then speak
in the final post-stroke telephone “conversations”
we held–
me speaking to him
(wondering what words could hold us together
over long miles and rapidly shortening time)
as the nurse said he gripped the phone
with unusual remaining strength

I hearken now to the silence
I heard then, searching for
what he was longing to say

and I begin to anticipate
his return as tonight
I slip beneath my covers

This time, when I hear
my name in his voice
I’ll hear his name in mine
as I often hear my own
in the voice of my son

“Hey Dad…want to play a game?”

Hearkening

Hearkening