How many times I lay
On that old couch
Just through the doorway
Where she shuffled from the table to the stove
Bringing food to dad,
In for supper late,
Or moving dishes to the sink
While I rested from the day,
Just lying there,
Unaware of conversations
I was soaking in.
"I should have sold the winter wheat
A week ago.
No telling how far down the price will go
Now that Russia's stopped our sales."
"Pizza, two for seven dollars again;
Apples three pounds for a dollar;
Bread for seventy-nine."
Or heard his offhand orders for next morning:
"Fencing's got to be done at Henry's.
Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures.
Take some salt and mineral along!"
Mother seldom spoke, or if she did,
She gave correction,
Reported pizza inventories, or bread.
Asked clarifying questions,
But always the creaking oven door
Or the running of rinsing water.
I awoke this morning at three,
Almost a year after my fathers death
From a restless dream of lying there.
Heard my mother's sounds,
My father's voice,
Life as once it was,
Mundane and wonderful
From the couch around the corner of the door:
A living memory
I would no more expunge
Than to remove my own name.
In a dream state,
Attentive now to sounds
Grown too late significant,
Too late sweet,
Almost too painful now,
I lay,
Half aware or half awake...
Thankful to live a memory so real,
Unaware I was transfixed
Inside a memory
Moving lightning speed
Through dreams....
As he was readying to leave,
Perhaps to go down to do one last chore,
I heard my father's footstep at the door.
"Dad, I wanted you to know
I love you very much!"
I spoke the words,
Loudly, so he heard.
I heard him clear his throat,
Say something about getting back to work.
And I awoke, a full day's drive away
From that old couch,
Itself five miles up the hill
From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.