IX.
“Everything must end”
Everything must end.
Silence is the sound
of children playing, the world
outside the churchyard.
His soul has left this sunlit place
for the wider skies to grace
an eternity, his wisdom
too much for earthly kingdom.
The other fathers took away his corpse
to prepare him by due course
for his travel to the afterlife
where there is no such grief.
Only yesterday I saw him, his hair
limp across his shoulder.
Never did I think as a child
how it would be when a parent died.
The interruption, the shock and urge
toward arms you always yearned for
but never quite reached.
He said he missed the beach
how the sand irritated him endlessly.
How the sun shined on the sea
just enough to lighten its darker hue.
His words grew fewer
the lifting of his lungs was labored,
his body ever tired.
I cried to have no sound
to gift him near his end.
Laughter, water, orange leaves.
Bandage of time, blessing of memory.
Father, please—
let him back to me.
Sing, music of my hands, sing
of the man whose heart was young
who saw my baser self, who took
no more than one look
to see me all the same.
Sing of the blame
God carries in His heart
to rend a man by parts.
Father who touched him since birth.
Father who prayed for his breath.
Restoration comes in death
returning to the paces of earth
like bittersweetest wealth.
…
Andrew Tye is from a town named Temple. He believes all humans are poets. He performs his forthcoming book My Son as a one-man show in NYC. He aims to share the book and the show with national audiences.