AfterImage

I see your face and hands
through a dim-lit, panoramic view.
My memories of you are like milky glass
wrapped around far-off days,
metaphysical lines funneling through my dreams
tempting me to reach beyond that which I can grasp,
into vagrant fields where children used to play.

In my eyes, you were high upon a ledge
and I, the trailing ivy on your wall,
my curvy tendrils seeking a firm attachment,
my leaves growing outward toward the light.

I recall you seemingly obscured,
packing suitcases,
often traveling – a distant notion.
Yet I can still recall the love from your eyes,
their lovely hue, like the heaven-blue of morning glories.

I heard about you through stories
from lips that fed me ‘who you were’ –
words from mother’s sacred urn of reminiscence
mixed with ashes of her ire
and fragments of your Colorado haze.

I cannot capture the hereafter,
nor touch you as I once could.
Yet sometimes in reverie,
I envision you:
skipping rocks across a river,
sailing a boat across a lake,
laughing heartily for the joy of life,
an ordinary boy who once was
my father's mother's son.

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“Remembering my earthly father”
William R. Bryant - (Born - March 26,1932 - Denver Colorado
– Died September 10,1969 - Birmingham, Alabama)