Father Land

It’s that autumn time of year,
when things curl into themselves,
when clouds open eyes to tear,
and pictures stare from the shelves.

You are yet a dream to be,
undisclosed within the dust.
As they left you, you left me, *
in a ball of flames combust.

The season fell; the snow fell.
My heart fell into the wood.
My tears fell into the well
of the last of my girlhood.

Seasons come and seasons go.
A ghost of guilt holds my hand.
The rain falls on Father Joe
who sleeps deep in Father Land.

*  When my father was a young boy, his mother and father died within three months of one another, leaving him to be raised by an older brother.

Author's Note

Reviews

[R.E. Ray]

Linda Marie, the black and white photo, creased and beautifully imperfect, gives your poem even more depth. Photos speak to us; an all-American, blue-collar, car loving man, embracing cats. That’s the photo of a father! And, your poem adds color, voice and emotion to an otherwise one-dimensional, silent image. Like the photos referenced in your poem, he’s staring at us, whispering something about who he was once upon a time.

As you’ve captured here, the seasons bring not only physical changes outdoors but happiness and sadness to the heart. The rain, wind, snow and sun all bring memories with their presence, and autumn’s mood is heavy in this poem. Still, this is a remarkable tribute to a man most readers never knew.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

I like to think that I take after him a lot. He was small in stature, tender-hearted, and artistically inclined. He actually painted those two pictures, and I know that he dabbled in calligraphy as well. I just feel that he was wounded from an early age and just was too sensitive for this world. When I turned 23, I remember feeling so guilty for having lived longer than my father. I remember thinking at that time how many things were left undone in my life and thinking of how many things were left undone in his.

[John the Baptist]

Anniversaries of tragedies can be hard on survivors, and I think that is what we are seeing here. In this poem, the lost loved one seems to be the father, who was himself bereaved in childhood. His death was apparently a violent one, probably a car crash. The anniversary has aroused a variety of old emotions, one of which is guilt, maybe of that variety called survivor guilt. Some memories do not die, they just hibernate. Beautifully rhymed, as usual.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you. He actually killed himself, using his car to drive straight on into a tree, which broke his neck. He was 23, with two young daughters, had been laid off from work, and found that my mother was having an affair with his best friend. That's a mountain for any man to carry. At 23, impossible.

[John the Baptist]

Very few people of any age could have acted or thought with a clear mind in the face of two such severe reverses coming so closely together.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

"My tears fell into the well/of the last of my girlhood"

sometimes we feel guilt even when we are not the perpetrators...but i can understand this...i was lucky enough to have my parents for a very long time...but each of them lost a parent very early in life...my mom was ten when her mother died of cancer...and my dad was 16 when his dad died of a heart attack.
it is like survivors of a catastrophe or a mass shooting...who feel guilt for surviving...

those woods of thought can be pretty dense with remorse...
elegant write,
j.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

I'm sure nothing is more impactful than the loss of a parent to a child or the loss of a child to a parent. I have lived as one and would never want to live as the other.

[JTD]

Wow! The whole poem is beautiful and so sad. The third verse is just … everything! Season fell, snow fell, heart fell, tears fell, everything fell - the earth crumbled. I can feel the sense of loss so much. Bravo for stringing beauty from your pain.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Thank you, JTD.