Emptying Time
While I was asleep, my father died,
slipped into that great coda, when memory passes
from one person to another person,
and I became a gatekeeper of his life.
And since there were gaps in his history,
I began filling them.
On my way to my father’s funeral,
a large whooping crane wafts across the bay
where a lavender light floats on water.
Before the dead releases,
breath becomes one door closing,
another one opening.
That strange lyric
of a life that continues
when someone starts sharing a memory.
I wasn’t there when he died,
but I have witnessed others at their last sigh
as a field medic in Vietnam. I remember
each of them like a slick country road
I must maneuver/drive in the dark.
The crane lifts its impossible weight,
its head matching crimson morning-break,
its whoop-whoop trumpets my loss.
How heavy a crane looks, large wingspan
almost tipping both edges of the sky,
endlessly suspended in air,
an aimless cloud, always present,
untouchable as thought.
*
I Had Been Expecting This Phone Call Since January
I hoped I was wrong.
Unfortunately, his voice on the other end
confirmed what I knew had to be true.
“Mom died in her sleep.”
I felt sorry for my son
passing on this information.
At least she died in her sleep,
someone would say, eventually. This
kind of news I expected.
Some would say
it was a relief she died;
painless, in her sleep.
People always say this
when they do not know what else to say.
I do not know what to say to my son
to ease his pain,
when often I lack the necessary words.
Some experiences in life
are not explained easily.
Life’s hardest lessons
leave no rational justifications.
We muddle through trauma
hoping sadness eventually fades away.
And it’s hard work;
often memory-pain returns at the worst moments.
Yes, she died in her sleep.
It was expected, and then
it happened, quietly.
Unfortunately, my son witnessed her death.
It will hover in his heart for a long time.
I cannot tell him how long his sadness will last,
or how sadness ebbs and flows,
boomerangs back,
because each person enters grief differently,
and it has no set time limit
how long suffering will last.
There’s no manual to explain how grief works.
Loss is experiential.
I held onto the silence in the telephone call
like a lifeline to my son.
I knew he was drowning
and there are no words
to soothe this kind of pain.
Silence lasted for a long time.
*
Lastness of Silence
This world does not know true meaning of silence:
it disturbs, tears hearts. My son, my son,
where are you in this orange-red world? You left
unsettling news. What could I do differently
to change this terrible mockingbird song?
How could I have placed my thumb on these scales?
I find a distance between snapped hearts and no maps.
I walk as silent as this night, searching, searching,
and you are not there. My son, my lost son,
lost within his own explanations. Answers are not here,
or in blank places in this sad jazz. My world empties.
You have not spoken to me since, my son, my son
of awful distances. This world cannot explain
true meaning of this silence, its haunting melody.
*
Martin Willitts Jr is an editor of Comstock Review. He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2020; 17th Annual Sejong Writing Competition, 2022. His 21 full-length collections include the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent books are “Harvest Time” (Deerbrook Editions, 2021); “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022); “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World (Flowstone Press, 2022); “Ethereal Flowers” (Shanti Arts Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023); “The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” including all 36 color pictures (Shanti Arts Press, 2024); and “All Beautiful Things Need Not Fly” (Silver Bowl Press, 2024).