Passing

Passing

 As your father died, it was the time

of the warblers passing through.

You did not know this as phenomenon or fact

but as a strangeness: the insistent, almost confusing,

almost idiotic, bright, bird song.

I remember those few days

when they brought the tall man home:

the dim hush around the rented bed; the slight lift of lace

at the window ledge. I remember the warblers’

bright accompaniment to his last hours.

When you later commented on the peculiarity of sound

I explained migratory patterns, mating, flight trajectory,

and the insistence of a thing to do what it must do.

I brought you a guide to warblers: leather bound,

fine papered, pages of observation and patterns and routes.

When a father dies you need a small, thick guide.

You need an explanation of arc and purpose and plan.

When I handed it, with its too many pages

and too many facts (that you, in your grief, could not possibly attempt),

I think what I really wanted

was to give you what I know about a father’s death:

how it is unbearable and heavy and earth-bound.

And how small, light birds will pass in flight

calling brightly, cheerily, insistently:

beauty remains.

 Kate Young Wilder