I am young- small,
youthfully slight and skinny
with grasping fingers.
You turn your back to me
and begin trudging away.
All I can remember is
reaching to hang onto your apron laces-
wrapping my fingers in it
and being dragged along,
my feet leaving furrows in the soft ground of spring.
You don't look
or acknowledge me at your back-
only prompt quick steps as
we pass in peace to summer
with the sun high, hot on our skin.
I let loose of you and dance amid
green pastels smeared with grass glistening wet.
I stretch my legs now found strong
with lengthened stride
and I spin circles around you
never focusing on your face.
With the vanity of adolescence
I forget our journey and become
vociferous in play.
But soon the skies, they darken
and my grasping skinny hands, they find.
Clutching for comfort -- apron strings
your careful bow tie
and chasing the rabbit knot.
Under sheets of rain that knock the leaves from the trees, we walk.
Silent--
among the howling of nature.
I grow taller than you
and my body matures.
You look small and fragile now,
frail in the whipping wind
as fall freezes into winter.
We are cold and hold hands,
alongside each other in lurching momentum through the long hours.
I am a man now--
tall, lithe, and toned.
Full of imperial inflection
as if the vicissitudes of spring once again overtook me,
I fill the empty air with vibrations.
The chatter of blue jays join
still you stride forward,
though stumbling here and there.
And I can hear your knees pop,
the joints grind, the mouth grim.
Snow melt wets the tongue
and water drips from beard
as I still follow you.
Sometimes at a distance,
other times huddling close in your emotional shelter-
we walk
past my wedding
and others now journey with us.
We become a pack
a group-
yet,
you're always out in front.
Pressing on, one foot after the next.
Single minded and silent
as the sun once again dawns on yet another spring
I see your goal and shout
and scream
and cry
and run to catch
to hold
to stop
prevent
block
but you're walking faster now
I wrap my grasping fingers
in your apron strings
and I pull hard as my muscles can
As if metal caught in a magnetic force
I am dragged toward your grave
And in your maddening march
there is true intent
as you topple.
Eventually I know
that I will awake and it will be this day
For now I know, I cannot handle it.