Because I can not bury my father in the sky
I burn him and spread his ashes on the ground.
He loved birds yet did not feed them crumbs—
just caught them in the color of their being.
He would watch the mower plow the field,
watch the hand fill the feeders with seed
feeling the tranquility of the man-made pond
drift towards him as he pulled the blanket from
his chin and felt the breeze ruffle his baldness,
the bed as high to the trees as a house allows—
all the doors open to the day
the night
the house receiving guest after guest,
the tables inside-outside spread for feasts,
until the last smoke of him singes my nostrils
settles in my lungs (this strange son of his),
floats above the branches into every nest,
leaving behind the clock spring in the fire
this nonparent of the future, this fruit
of his, leaving no seeds of his own.