Sharon M. Van Sluijs
School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics
2020
Poem
My father can hear it faintly
from the woods at the edge
of the facility that now holds him,
the barred owls’ cries. Late
beneath January’s glassy black sky,
two, a pair, toss out, again, again,
their eerie barking
call and response,
intent: ardor, courtship
in deep winter.
He stares off
in (I imagine)
a telepathy
of focused memory,
seeking thought—hers (upstairs
somewhere, Memory Care),
as his hand
would find hers
as they would walk at dusk,
or across a table, fingers
enlaced, or as,
together,
they would drift off
towards sleep.
Tonight, she is beyond
his touch, his sight, his reach—
away, and his hazy fear
steps into light:
they will never
go home.
Artist statement:
The decline and death of both of my parents became a topic of many poems for me.