In memory of my father



What elegy can truly package
a life?

Perhaps something about your
love for peanut brittle,
your parrot, your country
or the World Series of 1966?

Are there words that can
crystallize a romping spirit
on a short jaunt
in an imperfect world—
a living miracle,
often misunderstood,
unheard, sometimes,
but certainly
not unwept today?

Even trinkets of sun
tangled in the mist
are wondering where all
the light has gone.

You, who in
earth-shattering small
ways shaped me
from the moment
I showed up
kicking and screaming
like a frantic event
in your world,

are more than your memory,

so they'll be no pining
for yesterday here
and I'll try
something different and
not think of you
as you were,
but as you are . . .

Infinite . . .

that's right, another facet
of joy-chiseled Truth,
now knowing dust is only dust,
drama is only drama
(But what a show!)


for only a spin
across a deception
called Time,
in a vehicle for
the original beingness
that is you.

What elation to beam
through the cracks
of the shell,
knowing, finally, what
they meant by freedom,

while you wait for me on
the real side of forever
until we reach across
creation,

and all its theater

(all its howling and applause
and everything that doesn't matter),

until we meet where there
are no endings,

only love.


Patricia Joan Jones