WHEN I DREAM OF MY FATHER
I see his hands first--strong, stout
fingers extending from fair, freckled
backs, cuticles darkened by furniture
stain, and a deep diagonal scar
crossing the left index digit he nearly
lost to the band saw.
He sits motionless
except for the rhythmic rotating
of wrists, the curling and unfurling
of fingers, movements that ease
arthritic stiffness accumulated
in his joints by a lifetime of work
he never loved,
work handed down
by his father, along with
planers and power saws, chisels
and clamps that fill his carpenter's
life-a life he never wanted, a life
too small to house a soul that longed
to soar.
Reflected in his far away eyes,
I see images of the life he never lived--
sun-gilded gliders and his own hands gliding
down the neck of a classical guitar,
the freedom of air and music
a counter for the heaviness
of a world that entraps him like Merlin
inside the hazel wood.
And am I, as my mother says, just like him?
When I practice my scales and arpeggios
are the hands I see mine or his,
swollen and knotted as they are.
And when my son turns up the amp
in his bedroom, does he play for himself,
for me, or for the ghost of his grandfather?