I remember this, my last conversation with Papa.
He, trying to alleviate our pain.
But I heard, through his bravado
the saddened beat of my heart
submerged in deep water
no knowledge of how to stay afloat
grief no words could express
He said,
“Remember the sandhill crane?”
How could I forget?
Long necks
the sound of their rattle calls
broad wings flying over
ancestral farmland
He said,
“She’s like the hourglass that drips the sand of time
replenishes herself by picking leftovers from the field
She keeps moving forward.
She never stops.
She is you
and she is me.
Our fields, too deep to forget
Too vast to go away.
I will never truly leave you”
“Is this the way of things, Papa?”
“Ja, mein liebes.”
“It is,” he smiled.
Prose adapted from my novel, “Naked, She Lies”
Photo credit
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 