This is an old poem I wrote while my parents were alive, but given the world's current sorrowful state and d'Verse's tribute to Louise Gluck (recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature) who was known for her insight into loneliness, family relationships, divorce, and death, I thought it an appropriate time to share.
My father and I say the
rosary on the drive home
from the
hospital.
I forget a line
in the Our Father
and mumble my
trespasses.
He finishes for
me.
How could I
forget
that which was
memorized at the knee
of Sister
Severe?
Swimming
upstream in his wake,
I navigate the
mysteries,
the joyful and the sorrowful mingling like water and salt—
Let it be known that no one who sought
thy intercession was left unaided.
He stumbles on
the words,
they fall into
his handkerchief.
I finish for
him.
The miles pass
unnoticed
and the mysteries come to an end
but the road
continues and the day approaches
when there
won’t be anyone left
to remember
what is forgotten.