The recorded voice of a long dead relative and the old associations it stirs. How the first fall rain wakens mold in the yard. Leaves in his eyes, moss on his arms. Then you realize that all those years he was alive, you witnessed only the talking version of him, and never, not once, the solitary, the silent. Or, perhaps, that was his silence. As this is yours. Pages and pages of words, combed and arranged, not like hair on a head, but as marks made by a rake in a garden. Curious symbols found in a family album. This was your childhood. These were your depressions, your holidays, your triumphs, your wars. What is significance without them? What is meaning? The recording goes on. Finally you turn. He is there in the room. Talking, unaware, no longer listening to himself. You leave him alone. Go out, dip your toes in the earth.
September 23, 2021
.
[ 1237 ]
Categories: New Poems & Pieces
Tags: Bare Feet, Childhood, Death, Diaries, Family History, Journals, Listening, Meaning, Memory, Moss, Poems, Poetry, Rain, Silence, Symbols, Uncle Archie, Voices, Words, Writing
William Michaelian 