After the Storm

Olive skin

Death has lightened me toward you now

Your olive bound skin

Is fading

Beneath the grove I have formed for you

Your strong man hands

Are gripping still – this childhood grasp

Softer - now that you have gone

Here  

More often than you could before

Death has lightened me toward you now

And showed her soft face again

Gentled your accent

Quietened your unsettling

Warmed your gaze

She has given her kindness to me

And left the others bruised

Bent backward and wondering

Those infant hands reached for you as they

Lowered you down

Eyes like a bloodline – beating hard

To raise you back up again

They stumbled you know – let you slip

You would have laughed

Knowing

With the sport, and the dance and the strength of the trade

You would never have let that happen

We both sit, he and I, with the gifts

Your fathering gave  

Bright and terrible and tremendous

Rest them in our palms

Fire them up

Switch them off

Nurture them

Tending to that Olive Grove

That lies

With you

For you

Oceans away

Right here

Yes. I have lightened toward you

Now that you are gone