REMEMBERING MY FATHER REMEMBERING

He never recovered.

Passing

the cemetery, he looked away.

Often he listened alone

to recordings of classical poems

of heartbreak sung in Arabic.

Lament as art both saddened

and soothed him.

One night

in the Adirondacks, we drove

together to a mountain cove

and parked.

Surrounded by space

and stars, we sat, listened

and said nothing.

Later

I realized he must have come

there once with my mother

and wanted only to re-live

and share that memory with just

the two—the three—of us.

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