In Memory of Sweet William

Lately I've been feeling strange...

(stranger than usual)

I'm not sure why, but I wonder if it has to do with grief.

I find that grief rears it's ugly head every-once-in-awhile, and it's often in autumn.

My dad died 9 years ago today, so that's probably why I've been feeling so moody blue.

I don't cry about him anymore, but I always feel like there is a hole in me where he used to be.

I think about things, like how happy he would have been to meet Storm, and to finally see me in a happy relationship. Or how he would have loved to go with us when we went zip lining and hiking in Fern Canyon. He loved adventures in nature, and passed that on to me.

I have taken several classes recently with Shelley Klammer. She's a creative counselor who uses creativity to help people heal their deepest wounds. One of  her classes calls for daily poems in our journals based on magazine photos that call to us. I wrote one that was inspired by a photo of a thistle. My dad always loved thistles, because he was very into his Scottish heritage. Like thistles, he was sweet, but could be quite “prickly” when angered. But I miss him, nonetheless, in all of his various states. I don't think it ever goes away, this missing. Anyway, here's my poem in memory of my dad:




Sweet William




A glimpse of what was

So close,

but yet so far...

They smelled sweet in the fields

in the warm Michigan sun

across from the tall corn rows

we ran through like wild things...

(Michigan seems like a dream to me now)

He's not there,

tho I searched in tears

for his sugar maple tree

in the long, dewy grass.

I just missed it,

and that was the last time

since the Dia de los Muertos dance.

I sent him to the Rhine

and he came back

full circle

to a place in my heart

that he never left.