Silence for My Father

This is the silence around the poem of the death of my father.

This is the silence before the poem.

While my father was dying, the Challenger was exploding on TV

Again and again. I watched it happen. In his hospital room,

I followed his breath. Then it stopped.

This is the silence in a poem about the dying of the father.

We’re burning the earth. We’re burning the sky.

Here is another silence in the middle of the poem about the immolation of the Fathers.

The pyres of bodies in Saigon.

The burned air

The charred limbs.

Ash.

Rancid flames.

Heat

Light

Fire

We turn away.

Here is another silence within the poem about the burial of the fire.

When my father died, the rains poured down the moment I picked up the shovel of earth.

I staggered under the weight of the water.

Another silence please.

I have always wanted to be a woman of fire.

I will have to learn how to rain.

Gently, I will learn how to rain.

I have set fire to your green fields,

May I be water to your burning lands.

Please join me in this last silence at the end of the poem of fire.