Article voiceover
When my father died, I was 36 years old and could've carried him like he was a newborn because illness had taken so much of him away. But now, at 56, I'm weaker and I know, with my bad back, I couldn't carry him anymore. I couldn't wield the shovel to dig his grave. I couldn't lift his coffin no matter how strong the other pallbearers might be. I couldn't cradle him in my arms as I transported him on the last journey from his bed to the waiting ambulance. But I still hold the enormous weight of his death. I still tremble and lose my breath— I buckle and almost fall—when I remember the many, many times—since my birth and until his death— that my father carried me.
Here’s the post that inspired my poem:
And, as mentioned in this poem’s audio intro, here is that David Bowie song.
Sherman,
This is a great poem.
It stuns me with its depth.
Emerson describes in The Poet
how it feels to be near
a real poet
as he writes.
From the BlueWolves to Sherman and Michael
Terminal
Trading her bright skirts
and fancy shawl
for a thin, no-back, hospital gown
was hard enough
but to feel her full black braids
thin to balding--
broke her heart.
Feeble fingers tugged at mine,
"Promise you won't let me suffer."
She accepted my lie easily, knowing
that this trail
through these mountains--
is all about pain.
This enemy
doesn't bugle its charge to finish us.
It grows unseen,
a tiny flowering throb
that blooms into unbearable.
She presses the button
to pump that angel of relief
into her flattened vein.
All my poems of peace and passing
can not salve the fester of these hours.
We hold hands, sing for release,
balance our grief on a teetering faith
and wait for suffering's end.
Today, at sunrise, she welcomed peace.
Her face smoothed at the change of worlds.
I stayed behind, feeling the weight,
but stars did not wink out
nor birds forget their song.