Arriving from different countries
Each trying in his own way
Traversing the ropes, learning the language
To understand units of value
What is at stake
I've spent years learning the speak
What is important to him, the baggage tags
From his country, the suchness of his journey
They reflect through him like lights
in the terminal lounge through a
tumbler of flat club soda
It is the innuendo, not the words
Body language when we are tired, when we struggle
achieving a moment
Every time his eye twitches and one corner of his mouth turns
up in a cocky half-moon smile
The man is a salesman, an extraordinary closer
We are both finally gray and view each other
as men
Both capable of breaking morning blades across our cheeks
Father and son, American as you will, born out of the womb
of the same city yet being from
different countries we
seldom hold one another in that
special esteem
fostered by familial understanding
Just learning his language has taken me forty-eight years.
I anticipate the day we will talk
The day I will tell him that I speak with the spirit guides
The day I will tell him that I'm not his brand of Jew
The day I will tell him I was born to heal
to turn the medicine wheel
To accept the gift with courage
I anticipate the coming of a day when I will tell my father
how the world appears through my eyes
I anticipate the day I confess to him I live through my heart
And my pockets are still empty.
I will tell him of my sojourn as a Taoist
A Zenist
A Gani Yogi
A Reiki Healer
A Native American Shaman
My take on quantum physics, my profound respect for Einstein
My endless search for God's most definitive touch
Let me tell you, Pop, what it feels like
To live within the body of God
To journey so far yet never without God
I have been allowed to scratch the surface.
I anticipate the day he will grab me
Search my face, my eyes
Smile the cocky smile and close me with
Son, let me show you my world from the deepest part of me
Son, let us share our language, our countries.
I anticipate our coming together
And that it will be no surprise
We came near it once
When he confessed that he'd often felt short changed by God
That he lacked the ability to truly perceive human nature
And that he spoke thusly to me, his son, from another country
And that we sat alone, my father and myself in a room,
in my home, an intimate place where my wife and I sleep
Everything in my country went quiet while this man spoke
My ground lay desolate waiting his words
And I strained in desperation to understand
To hear the speak, to learn the language.
He called the night before his angiogram
Telling me he didn't know, they didn't know
That business has been slow, like death
That he takes it as it comes and doesn't give a fuck
[Son, I'm calling because on some level
Traversing a great distance between our countries
I'm vaguely aware that you've always been there
moving me from one divorce to another
in endless
coffee shops listening to my howling loneliness,
at the Oakland Airport when they lost
my brother's body
and I cried because finally it was too
damned much
I'm calling because you took the high road and came back to me
I'm calling to tell you that my family is gone, I'm feeling old
facing my mortality, don't know what tomorrow
holds
To tell you that I'm scared]
To hear the speak, to learn the language, finally.