\ ˈfä-t͟hər \

a noun, great wave

surging mass, a verb, he rolls in

puffs us up, as by wind

 

date of birth: his was

raw, a gust, like today ­–

Sun will rise:  Sun will set:

 

trees will blow leafless

on top of Pine Hill – look

a big enough hole

           

we  opened,

we emptied

his ashes    then, out

 

from under his cloud – children

grown from his weather – we sink

boots, into earth, churned

 

creamy with rain, here is thunder

and crack, like it’s a command  –

 

                                    rise    roil    scatter

Kelly DuMar ˈfä-t͟hər \, first published in Split Rock Review, 2018; published in girl in tree bark, 2019

Charlie woke us very very early moaning and groaning to be fed. Frank went, gratefully. I fell back asleep, dreamt of my mother when I expected to dream of my father. She was hosting a party in my basement while I was running a poetry workshop. Groggily, I woke late into the frigid weather. My father’s birthday. I packed the pups in the car and drove to Pine Hill Cemetery in the center of town and sat for a few minutes on my parents’ bench where their ashes are buried. The sky was a piercing bright blue above the trees, and I felt I made contact. Then, we drove to Hunting Lane, to Prospect Street, and I parked and walked the Town Land trails of Brush Hill Road, all the wooded places I wandered and played growing up on Brush Hill. Charlie was ecstatic to have an adventure. I walked behind the Mayo property, all the horse trails around Course Brook, over all the places I walked growing up, and then raising my own children before we moved to the river. I could see the driveway to my parents’ house in the distance. I was sorry to be missing my mother’s party. My brother was unpacking the dishes for the party from boxes in the basement – the blue patterned every day dishes we ate on as children! I said, “Make sure you wash those first. They haven’t been used in a very long time.”