Thursday, December 5, 2024

Dresser Memento

 

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].



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