The old news
wakes me from another manic dream
about my sons, 4 a.m., a solitary bird
whistling to no answer, news enough
that my night is over, day begun,
time to receive the old news—my father
no longer alive again—as if it were new,
though only through sentences
that circle like this one—circle
like yesterday’s drab cardinal,
who blended into the uncut lawn,
the leafy hedge, circling repeatedly
from another yard to the dogwood
to the overhead wire to feed her chick
who barely clung there, while the flashy
father tried with flapping antics
to distract me, watching from the patio
as descending dusk enshrouded
my father—dozing again on the porch,
his newspaper unfolding to the floor—
who died five years ago last night.
D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press).
https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage