Poem from Acquiring Land by Jane Rohrer. Dreamseeker Poetry Series #17, Cascadia Publishing, 2020.
Now I see him lie dying,
Man who has been mean.
He's made his bed so low
so narrow-hard
so clean.
Now I hear him sigh, crying
In minimal light at five o'clock
so slow
so dryly old,
"I'm cold."
Oh, it is the same old thing.
Same old song you always sang.
Don't worry, you are safe,
I am not son, I will not murder you.
But
I am daughter. I can walk away.
"Walk," he said.
He said walk and I walked.
And I walked. And I am walking.
But
Comes some thought
Of virgin timber
And wild persimmons, father,
pod,
dried husk
Of random seed,
Small boat I see set down
At the edge of the water
And, any minute now,
The journey weatherless,
My father.
About the Author
Jane Rohrer, nee Turner, was born in Broadway, Virginia in 1928. She spent four years at Eastern Mennonite High School and then attended Eastern Mennonite University (then College), where she met her husband Warren Rohrer. Together, the Rohrers embarked on an adventure exploring the world of the arts, first through Warren's career as a painter, and later through Jane's work as a poet. As an adult, Jane studied at Temple University and The University of the Arts in Philadelphia under Stephen Berg. Berg published many of Jane's poems in The American Poetry Review. She is the author of two poetry collections, Life After Death and Acquiring Land.