In Mind, if Nowhere Else

My father's dead. He's turned to ashes, and been scattered
On a field of rocks which slid a couple miles from,
And maybe several hundred feet below, the place
A sign proclaims the continent's divide. A decent man,
I like to think, his life and death defy the packaged
Nonsense all of us must hear. I don't believe he ever
Saw himself as having any goal. He went to work
To pay for kids and beer and trips into the mountains,
Not for any greater thing. He didn't go to church.
He didn't lecture me. He simply read, a boy from high
Up in the aspens, stranded at the ocean's shore
All week, then saddled with three kids who learned
To brave the wilderness, its frigid waters, as he sat,
Impassive, on a fallen log, absorbed by magazines.
The kernal of what I know now was planted in those
Balmy days: the universe is without meaning,
Sins are what somebody you don't know believes
You shoudn't do, and virtues end up wasted efforts.
My dad died, and he's forgotten. When I die, I'll be
The same, and frigid rivers flow, regardless
Of the eyes which read their names. Existence
Hasn't any purpose. What is will not always be,
So, if you find something to treasure, cling to it
As memory.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 88 times
Written on 2018-08-02 at 02:28

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