SLAM!

11th Hour

Almost every night thereafter
my father dreamed he was leaping
from burning buildings--
behind him, glass and fire;
ahead, air black with smoke and ash.
Sometimes he fell forever
not because if you land you are dead
but because there was no land
and there was no death.

In his waking life, my father finds
all his friends are dying.
It is their time, so one by one they leap
passionate into the smoky unknown,
a freedom better than this searing pain,
the tower of suffering
that is one human life,
that is so many lives.

And this morning when I wake
my father's life flashes before my eyes,
his moment in Gethsemane, my father's father
feeding my father's diary, page by page,
into the inferno of the basement furnace,
his son gasping in pain if not disbelief.

I am the one awake now, interpreting
the dream, interpreting my father's past,
seeing his father as a domestic terrorist,
a true believer, a cursed and cursing man
so reduced to ash, to coal dust, by his own
sense of powerlessness
that he must, for the love of God,
take someone with him,
even his own dearly beloved son.

Invalid Item  This item number is not valid. #1107050 by Not Available.

Who's your icon?: ** Image ID #661593 Unavailable **