THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FOREVER DARK

the night before the dark
the day before the forever night
the evening before the total dark
            the closing of my father's mind

I fall down crying in a dream
            he has died
            and I have not said good-bye
                        because he lives
                                    at moments
                        because he flickers
                                    in and out

so on
the day before the forever night
I still
     see him
            my father
                 alive

his mind
     is not yet
            forever dark
it blinks in and out

he asks
he asks questions
            like a child
he wonders like a child

            the cat has a second litter of kittens
            so she is, he says, a grandmother now
            no, she is, once more, a mother, I reply
            oh, he goes, not sure
                        why this time she is not a grandmother
            a few minutes later, he again says,
                        so she is a grandmother now

he is seventy-four
so young, so very young
he is the age to be a grandfather
and he has no grandchild

he is not
            forever young

but on the night
before the total dark
I hold him in my heart
            in my wakeful mind

and wonder
            where has the time gone?

I am your daughter
I used to be a child
                        your child
I am not a child
                        though still your child

and on this night
before the forever dark
I ask
     what has happened
            to my father
                        with his questioning, ever-wondering mind?

Elsa
August 3, 2003
© Elsa Schieder, 2003, 2008, all rights reserved
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2003, 2008

****

  Poems for Fathers. My Daughter to Father Poem.
Father Daughter Poem.
the night before the forever dark,
his mind not yet forever dark,
I fall down crying in a dream.

****

I wrote this poem after a visit from my parents -
less than 3 weeks before my father died
in a car accident.

I spoke with him 45 minutes before his death.

I saw him 2 more times after
I wrote this poem. I was trying to spend more time
with my parents, so invited them over for lunch Sundays.

He had had micro strokes, tiny strokes - at least one
in a deep primitive part of the brain that sorts and files.
I could feel he didn't have much more time - but expected
a year, a couple of years, of most of hm still beng there.
Not this sudden cutting off.

On his last visit, when he was leaving - it was brilliant
sunshine in the late afternoon - he said,
why don't my shoes go on? He was stooping over,
with a shoe horn, the way he always did to put on his shoes.

You don't have your shoes, I said - something like that. Because yes, he was doing everything right - except that
he had forgotten to get his shoes.

He recognized what had happened, and laughed and
laughed. His sense of humor was all there.
So were many parts of his brain.
He was still chuckling when he left.

****

There's much more to the story of his last week.

This isn't the place.

****

Like in the dream, so much was incomplete between us.
But I was trying to get more closeness, to bridge gaps.
I was trying to listen to the dream. And that last time
I saw him, I did say something important, something
about love. I can't remember the words.
I wanted to say more - the next time.

Anyway, on the night before the forever dark,
he was still so much himself,
still with young young eyes.

****

There is much I still want to do for him - especially to get
at least some of his creative works out into the world.

My deadline for the first of these works to be up:
Dec 31, 2008.

Elsa
AUGUST 14, 2008

MORE ...

 

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****

Click here to go to more poems for fathers,
My Father's Worlds.

Click here to go from poems for fathers
to father and daughter stories,
Chosen Home - A Reflection.

Click here to go to poems of sadness -
about a father's loss -
Words Cannot Contain.

Click here for
all the words music
spoken word poems poetry
music lyrics songs.

****

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A dozen years ago,
I began to wake up
with word pieces -
words music, spoken word, songs -
in my head.
Escape velocity.
Echo of the echo.
Tank almost empty.
Can't cross the gap.
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Poems for fathers
I wrote so few poems for my father
I had such distance from my parents

Yet this father to daughter poem
comes from father daughter connection
one of the deepest connections in my life

Poems for fathers
daughter to father poems
father daughter poem,
father daughter poems,
poems for fathers

You were closest to me
when we were apart

And I could always feel your love for me
Your love and sense of sameness -
same in our creative drive,
our intense aliveness,
our hoping and dreaming

And now, these pale things
daughter to father poems
father daughter poems
poems for fathers -
it can't bring you alive

Today is August 14th,
just over 5 years since I wrote this -
this daughter to father poem
that came from my falling down crying in a dream

Today is August 14th.
In a week - just over a week -
it will be 5 years since you died.

Will there be more daughter to father poems,
more poems for fathers,
poems for you?

You are right at the core of something else -
other writing - in my own, my chosen home -
you who never seemed to feel fully at home
like me, who has also not felt fully at home

Daughter to father poems -
you feel most alive when I see the photos

Images, images of you, not words,
not daughter to father poem words

I know you always wished me well
wished to help
didn't know how
like you couldn't help yourself
reach from the intensity of your dreams
and well of creativity.

Anyway, here's one daughter to father poem -
quiet grief.

Elsa
August 14, 2008
 © copyright - Elsa Schieder - 2008, all rights reserved

THE START TO BE ON THE WEB BY
December 31, 2008 -
A GIFT TO MY FATHER AND THE WORLD

and I have done this ...
it is now only November 7, 2008
and several of his poems are up, including ...
DU UND DEINE HEIMAT - Heimat Gedichte and
DIE SEHNSUCHT - Sehnsucht Gedichte

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