A Vigil to Honor my Father

A Vigil to Honor My Father

The Greening Side of Things

When I think of you

it is always the deepest color of green

Not the green that the sun kisses

to make it glow with light

The green on the underside of the leaf

where the spider dwells

The dark under the log

where the salamander sleeps

The green on the inside of a tree

where only the elvin ones can see

Once, once I told you

you went wrong

when you should have gone right

You are a poet like my mother

not an outlaw for a Pa

You were a mystic gone wrong

and finally you took the wrong turn

for the l last time

What were you feeling

in those last moments?I hope it was a burst of joy

the one you always left this world to seek

I hope you saw the colored lights

the ancients send out as beacons to the lost

But then perhaps you never lost your way

instead honored your broken

and beautiful greening way.

I think of you often,

with neither anger or regret

and most days

I just wish I could have shown you

that I see the magic too

You weren’t the one who showed me

but I always knew you saw it tooOne day you came to my house

for breakfast unannounced I had prepared a quiche and as you

sat to eat in silence – you said

This is what I really really needed

and I just didn’t know it.

Thank you.I hoped you would see in me

all you hoped I would become

but you never said

You just told me you prayed for me

and I also – pray for you.

I would like to think on you as ancestor

but when I reach in the spaces between

it is only the greening I see

not the identity that was you

You have returned to the soil

and I will honor you here in green dirt

with the passing of each season.

Rest well father of the greening

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