The keepsake I used to display of dad
was a photograph of him and me
when I was little, walking down a hall
in the high school where he taught English
rows of lockers on either side of us
like parts of the mind where memories live.
My small hand in his, we were silhouettes
against sunlight through the glass door exit.
One day I realized I am older now
than he was the afternoon this picture
was taken, which made me feel uneasy.
So, I replaced it with a whelk shell
bigger than my fist and the slate-blue color
of a storm-tossed, foamy sea. We found it
on a walk at dawn in the Outer Banks
four years before melanoma killed him.
That morning, as the sun rose above
the horizon, a hundred-strong dolphin pod
swam by close to shore, many of them
leaping from the water with apparent joy;
the splash of their bodies against the surf,
the rhythmic spray of their exultant breath
still resonates inside that spiral shell
when I hold it to my ear and listen.
--Jason Harlow
[Jason's parents both taught at the same high school where I teach. Jason's dad died 25 years ago now, the same year as my own father died of melanoma].
No comments:
Post a Comment