Alighted from a Heaven

  A familiar thud, an open door,sudden and wide upon the snow;the trees and twigs and bushesseem like fingers, softly gray;the snow falling, roundand perfect like a winterprayer in the light of noon.The worried silent corridor,my father’s graceful faceremaining a memory, returningwith the storms of life,always returning, weariedwith the cold, while the vaporswhistle clean from clothes.Livid, frozen mouths and ears,red words frozen in time,red like the life of Christmas,forever falling from a blank sky,falling extenuated into place,a fitting puzzle of the seasons.Outside, the wind keeps onwhistling, again, and I wonderwhere all these people gooutside my transient window?Where in the world the trails?the combed trees and polesat the final end of the streets?Slamming in the hurriednessof jobs and childrengotten in the cars, delayedby a sudden, tender obligation,they yell an open echo, stilledas a rewinded picture of love;  and my father’s blurring glasses,yet intent to a half broken radio,blaring God knows what song,happily heard in the distant color.Those of us who still remembermy father’s spacious, sullen voice,always in the tick tack of clocks,thin and congealed, sad, perturbed,forever in the blessed stanceof those who left, but not forever;those reflected on the walls,the whispering illness, smiling darkin the mahogany languageof the living room, mysterious,broken, in the faith, the hopeand tears of those remaining fragileand small, they are still alightedfrom a happier children’s heaven,tucked in the warmth of peace,still afraid, but smiling, even whenthe storm will not stay with us forever.