Oct 2013
(regarding the death of my son)
I fear very little
but the one thing I DO fear
is forgetting the sound of his voice.
It was 70 year-old husky
by the age of 14.
The manifestation was a quartet bass
tucked neatly in the body
of a fray-headed sparrow.
If you closed your eyes
the lumberjack you imagined
would be tickled to see
the tiny powder keg
that actually stood before you.
Inside the resonance was a warm huckster laugh,
half good ole boy,
half saint,
half comforter.
He was fifty percent more real
than anyone I knew.
On the good days his chuckling possessed him
to the point of breathlessness.
His joy-tears are the Rembrandts of our memories
never to be tarnished by any pity demons.
But on the bad days his laughter trailed away
into a pugilistic cough.
It's the one thing I fear I will always remember.
Yet when he spoke the sincerity was so ominous
that any inaccuracies seemed irrelevant.
Love was the spine of his vocabulary.
There were no meaningless words.
Regardless of the lettering
they all had the root meaning
of clemency.
He spouted new beginnings
and hope
regardless of past mistakes of failures.
I fear very little
but I fear I will forget the sound of his voice
for I fear that I have already forgotten my own.
Today it speaks only of him being gone.
Reliquishing are the days
that were full of him.
I submit to songs that were his
and find myself tethered to unmerited heaviness.
No matter how loud I scream
the present rains on me
and my voice is lost
in the sickness of the storm.
I cannot turn it off.
I press my radio presets
to chase away the Rascal Flatt residue in my head
and land on a Christian station.
**** it.
The only thing he loved more than Rascal Flatts
was Jesus.
Me too. But not today.
I just want to stop crying.
It's the magician's multi-colored scarves
tied corner to corner
in a endless tug of futility and frustration.
The more I want the prank to stop
the more irritating the infinite parade of colors becomes.
I pull again and again hoping the next scarf,
the next involuntary sorrow,
will be the last one.
I open my mouth in concious agenda
to change directions
and speak of the blessings I have
in my other children
only to find his name tied to the last name
which was his as well
just in another color.
I cannot stop speaking of him
no matter how hard I try.
And I wonder if my kids know
that I know
they're suffering in his shadow
and I can't fix it.
I fear very little
but I fear I will forget the sound of his voice
as I am forgetting mine
and terrified that I may be muting theirs as well.
I fear very little
but the one thing I DO fear
is forgetting the sound of his voice.
It was 70 year-old husky
by the age of 14.
The manifestation was a quartet bass
tucked neatly in the body
of a fray-headed sparrow.
If you closed your eyes
the lumberjack you imagined
would be tickled to see
the tiny powder keg
that actually stood before you.
Inside the resonance was a warm huckster laugh,
half good ole boy,
half saint,
half comforter.
He was fifty percent more real
than anyone I knew.
On the good days his chuckling possessed him
to the point of breathlessness.
His joy-tears are the Rembrandts of our memories
never to be tarnished by any pity demons.
But on the bad days his laughter trailed away
into a pugilistic cough.
It's the one thing I fear I will always remember.
Yet when he spoke the sincerity was so ominous
that any inaccuracies seemed irrelevant.
Love was the spine of his vocabulary.
There were no meaningless words.
Regardless of the lettering
they all had the root meaning
of clemency.
He spouted new beginnings
and hope
regardless of past mistakes of failures.
I fear very little
but I fear I will forget the sound of his voice
for I fear that I have already forgotten my own.
Today it speaks only of him being gone.
Reliquishing are the days
that were full of him.
I submit to songs that were his
and find myself tethered to unmerited heaviness.
No matter how loud I scream
the present rains on me
and my voice is lost
in the sickness of the storm.
I cannot turn it off.
I press my radio presets
to chase away the Rascal Flatt residue in my head
and land on a Christian station.
**** it.
The only thing he loved more than Rascal Flatts
was Jesus.
Me too. But not today.
I just want to stop crying.
It's the magician's multi-colored scarves
tied corner to corner
in a endless tug of futility and frustration.
The more I want the prank to stop
the more irritating the infinite parade of colors becomes.
I pull again and again hoping the next scarf,
the next involuntary sorrow,
will be the last one.
I open my mouth in concious agenda
to change directions
and speak of the blessings I have
in my other children
only to find his name tied to the last name
which was his as well
just in another color.
I cannot stop speaking of him
no matter how hard I try.
And I wonder if my kids know
that I know
they're suffering in his shadow
and I can't fix it.
I fear very little
but I fear I will forget the sound of his voice
as I am forgetting mine
and terrified that I may be muting theirs as well.
