{"id":3518,"date":"2025-04-24T09:56:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/?p=3518"},"modified":"2025-04-24T09:56:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:56:05","slug":"in-the-facility-my-parents-separated-by-two-floors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/in-the-facility-my-parents-separated-by-two-floors\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Facility: My Parents Separated by Two Floors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharon M. Van Sluijs
\nSchool of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics
\n2020
\nPoem<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My father can hear it faintly
\nfrom the woods at the edge
\nof the facility that now holds him,
\nthe barred owls’ cries. Late
\nbeneath January’s glassy black sky,
\ntwo, a pair, toss out, again, again,
\ntheir eerie barking
\ncall and response,
\nintent: ardor, courtship
\nin deep winter.<\/p>\n

He stares off
\nin (I imagine)
\na telepathy
\nof focused memory,
\nseeking thought\u2014hers (upstairs
\nsomewhere, Memory Care),
\nas his hand
\nwould find hers
\nas they would walk at dusk,
\nor across a table, fingers
\nenlaced, or as,
\ntogether,
\nthey would drift off
\ntowards sleep.<\/p>\n

Tonight, she is beyond
\nhis touch, his sight, his reach\u2014
\naway, and his hazy fear<\/p>\n

steps into light:
\nthey will never
\ngo home.<\/p>\n

 
\nArtist statement:<\/p>\n

The decline and death of both of my parents became a topic of many poems for me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… <\/p>\n

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