A poem for my father
Your leaving
is a miracle.
Light and fresh – grieving the space you left.
This summer rain soothes the open wound.
Your leaving brings a sort of spaciousness.
As if it is easier to breathe.
One day I will be ready to forgive
You
And when I do
you will detach and fall away from the branches of my mind
like a leaf in autumn;
untwine
let go;
falling further
down slow.
But first
I have to trail each scar.
Each is a signpost that I left;
where the meanings are.
Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel you would recite
night after night?
How they would scatter bread crumbs and stones on their paths
so they can find their way back home.
I hope now you know
that the way you screamed your pain
demanding its realness,
It’s yours, to let go.
the way you infused your own father’s hatred on me –
now I can see
it was never my fault.
And even today, as you pack up your life and leave with a smirk
that hides an ancient pain,
it is not my fault. It is your work.
I believed it for a long time – that I was born from autumn’s core to save you.
Perhaps you brought me here to give a meaning to your existence, to get you through.
A mere extension of yourself,
a little girl that will listen to your mournful songs and ominous tales
to you bragging on and on
about a broken world.
It is not my fault.
Yet
I am grateful as you revealed my shadow
my dark parts
Through you, I brought to surface the unresolved
which has rooted its way through all of our hearts.
Your leaving is a miracle
the start of a slow forgiveness longing to be felt.
Without you
I can hear a song that is my own yearning to be sang.
A life that is my own.
A choice to kindle the light.
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