Goodbye to Dad

Now it is time
for you to fish again. Our breath
catches at each thought of you,
becomes a spring breeze
pushing aside winter, timidly regreeting
tumbling creek and sun. Can we too
cast furiously? Arc tears
and dreams across this blue stream?
Tempt you to rise,
whirl skyward? Spiral
toward Montana mountains in ragged wind?

Someday we will toast the end
of loneliness, won't really believe then
it can come true.
Nothing has prepared us
for a connection gone so deep
into rainbowed loss. Still, it seems
a premonition of something more
to come. Maybe the final calm
we too will feel
after we put our creels in order.

Timothy Pilgrim

This poems was inspired by a passage in Gretel Erlich's Solitude of Open Spaces.