Sweetest of Tears

 
Across the chasm of time
and great distance
memories unfold

vividly rich
like elaborate origami sculptures

fragile as the paper of an old map
opened and reopened a 1000 times
they are creased deeply
with sepia memories

heading east
cresting the great divide
beginning the decent
into the past
through these soaring ramparts
of sky-piercing mountains
I envision what lies ahead

forests
tier upon tier
of enormous sitka spruce

of scattered brewers
known as the weeping spruce
the most beautiful of the conifer

my mother loved them

whose branches in sunlight
following a summer rain
display raindrops
as a jeweler’s velvet
showcases diamonds

I hear the whispers
of wind-stirred
lawson cypress
towering ponderosa pine
and douglas fir

I inhale deeply
the tangerine-scented white fir

a heady fragrance
rivaled only
by the rough-tufted red cedar

the dogwood’s brilliant leaves
big-leaf maples
pendulous western maples
tight ranks of dark-green sadler oak
unfurl below me

still traveling my mind’s vistas
I see the golden shimmer
and I hear crisp crackle
of white-barked aspen

my father’s favorite tree
reminded him of Canada
his country of birth

these all still live and breath
in my younger-days heart
calling me forward
down into the valley
and across the planes
of a childhood long ago

this morning’s sun
came crisp and bright
enfolding my waking
in warmth
and vivid presence
as the world awoke
fresh and fascinating

I embarked early
after eggs
juice
toast and jelly
the sweet and salty taste
lingering
of a homecoming
too long overdue

my soul is full
my mind is clear
my heart — overflowing
but my sprit is tentative

when dusk settles this evening
and early shadows
fall soft across my face
I will round Miller’s Corner
as it comes into view

worn
withered
but warm with recall

my wooden framed
childhood home

abandoned now to ghosts
specters of a youth
spent surrounded by love
by laughter
by learning
and by loss

one of the ghosts
in that old house
is my mother
who passed within its walls
on a summer day
not unlike today
as I sat sobbing
in my room
down the hall

my father kept me from her room
he feared the sickness that took her
might take me

so I never really
got to say goodbye to her
nor goodbye to the laughter
that died that day

nor goodbye to the smile
on my father’s face
for it was never seen again

it disappeared
as did my father
into deep debilitating depression

shortly after mother passed
I was moved away
to live with my aunt
in Oregon

today I will return
to say a long delayed goodbye
to my mother
and to lay my father to rest
in the cemetery
behind the dilapidated old church
where once they wed

he will at last
join with his dear wife
my sweet mother
the women he loved so
that his joy died with her

a cloud of sorrow
sweeps my mind
momentarily obscuring
my purpose and destination

then the fog wafts
and again I envision
across the veiled valley
of time and change
the hearth and home
of my birth

long faded
into yesteryear

now
sweet recall
and those distant memories
pull me onward

I am sad
but it’s a bittersweet sadness

tomorrow
my father
will again
be with my mother
ghosts
in our old house

as I return
I pray his smile
will at last return
he deserves to smile

my mother loved his smile
I love them both

down out of the mountains
into the twilight
of final goodbyes
I redouble my pace

the sweetest of tears
cloud my eyes

*

The poem is fiction, the love is not.

*
rob kistner © 2022

Poetry at: The Sunday Muse

This song evokes memories of my father, who passed July 1983, at the age of 66.
Also of my son, who passed July 1985 is at the age of 18.