This room—not his
nor the house, the yard
Though a placard bares his name
it slides out
at a moment’s notice
when the waiting ends
when his old hand stops—
twirling, mindless against the loving quilt
This house-- the same
but different
from a distance
He should be sitting in this still life
an old Sachem
on his lawn chair
This garage—where I stand
still his, strangely
Patient tools
Cherry Chevrolet wait
with work gloves resting...
Cannot bring myself to touch
where his hands last laid them
As if to move a thing
would **** the matrix of the man
His moment rushing toward me....
I can hear their whispers now
Leaves, once forbidden
have gathered in his absence
tangled in his hedges
nestled by the stairs
Chattering together—
“Man with the rake—no longer comes”
My father was not someone I could sit with to have a conversation. That would be like heading into a storm. I watched him and admired him from a distance. I didn't truly appreciated him until he was the old man of this poem, sitting in the Soldier's Home, remembering fishing in the Connecticut River and longing to be hiking in the mountains above it.
Sachem is the word for chief or strong man from the northeastern American Abenaki tribes.