He had always assumed that when his parents died
A kind of freedom would commence
For him to grow into what he could become,
But when his faher passed, unexpected,
His shock to realize the opposite was great,
And left him feeling numb and naked,
Weak and unprotected.

That he should realize his own mortality,
And the imminent farewell coming for himself,
And the sad goodbyes to other journeyers,
So gripped him then,
And robbed his sleep by bringing waking dreams:
Conversations with his father's silent ghost,
Worries of adequate preparations,
(What to leave behind, what to send ahead),
And desires to make some sort of difference,
So troubled his poor head
As to take the deepest sleep,
The kind he'd had whilst father was alive,
And leave him morning-tired and troubled.

Seeking solace for losing a life once charmed
With parents well and family whole, so tempted
Him to seek relief in revels far from depths-plunged grief,
That for a while, he lumbered on,
A wanton, seeking temporary pleasure
Who barely stopped to measure
The flying moments of his sordid life,
The cost of temporal flights with no intended destinations,
The emptiness of purpose-empty avocations,
The fruitless pursuits of mindless gratification.

But now he sits,
Back up against a lonely bedroom wall,
Violin and orchestra his late night companions,
Taking stock of where he's been and where he's bound,
Thinking deep and praying some,
Wondering what the waning mornings left to him will bring.

Lonely, he has become a different man,
Humbled in his un-sought and once-denied mortality,
A peace-begging supplicant beneath a tired moon,
While ancient winds blow ancient dust around
Outside his open window,
Just as they did while his mother moaned
Fifty years and more ago
Out on the dry land farm where he was born.