Three Laments
Michael Neal Morris
Smashwords Edition
copyright 2009 Michael Neal Morris
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Acknowledgements
Portions of the sequence “Damnation” were originally published in The Mayo Review.
The sequence “Concurrences” was originally published in Lacryma: Songs of Lament.
Part I of “Concurrences” was also published at Contemporary Rhyme (online).
The sequence “Peniel” was originally published at Farrago’s Wainscot (online).
Concurrences
I.
The light of the dark and ever fallen
world, knew me, saw me, before opening
the door to my black room, Dad, you let in
the sallow light in the hall. And coming
in with you, the blue noise of the t.v.
said, "All kids are to be in bed right now."
They're no match for the sight of your soft brow
behind thick lenses, of your gaze on me.
They're unequal to the sound of your hand,
tired, yellowed fingers pulling covers
to my chin. You say, "Go to sleep." I can
now. I remember an angel hovers
unseen above my bed after the door
is shut, and I fall to deep dreams once more.
II.
On a breezeless afternoon, I brushed leaves
from the stone of your grave. But they came back
to clutter your name and dates, to attack
the urn you were reduced to. I believe
I was angry with the wind, so unfair
was my heart. Then an over-cheerful face,
too comfortable invading my space,
walked over like she could go anywhere.
A cousin or friend you would remember,
she tells me, with glee, a story or two
of tricks you played and minor braveries.
And we smiled, sad, near where our defender
slept. She was too alive to have known you,
I thought. But truth bears strange realities.
III.
How happy, at least, the body must be
after death, released from the bonds of Me,
no longer subject to the tyranny
of They. Such is the fate, thank God, of We.
The mind, too, divorced from stimulation,
does not struggle with justification.
It has neither need nor obligation
to be conformed to a generation.
But the soul? Is the soul too hard to know?
Or is it simple, so lacking in show,
that when it speaks with the force of a blow
from unimaginable hands, we go
alone, so proud of our autonomy
we half-comprehend our anatomy?
IV.
Fathers are imperfect gods. Even when
we see them stumble in good light, we build
alters in dark rooms. In solitary
whispers, we recall the monsters they fought:
the drunken wife, the unrelenting boss,
scheming children, one-eyed politicians,
and the cowardly thief of dads, cancer.
And here we wait for them to rise again.
Here we forget their faults, the joys they killed.
At these shrines we drink our hope until we
run out of wine and find the bread we bought
is hard and exacts from each heart a cross.
We suffer disease beyond physicians
and ask questions expecting no answer.
V.
History books and cable t.v. can
try to explain the effects of the war
on our country. But they don't know the man
I watched die who could tell me nothing more
than he had been there. None of them will see
the soldier wrestling with his thoughts, or me,
tortured by his tortured mind. Memory
keeps records, stores data, that can't be saved
on any disk drive or analyzed by
coprocessor. I see the man who gave
more than he had, hear his agonized cry.
The last time I saw him conscious, his tears
of frustration awakened in me fears
that can't be conquered until grace appears.
VI.
So where is that grace and what does it look
like? And with these self-absorbed ears and eyes
how would I know it? Dad, you did not seem
ready to die. Clinging to my weak arms,
hanging above pain by a morphine drip,
order was overturned and you became
the son. I secretly cheered as you fought
the bully, death, knowing that you could not
win. And so you were told there was no shame
in letting go. Just lie back down and slip
into the long, good sleep. Now no alarms
can wake you. I see a tear in the seam