I didn't really care for mockingbirds ... |
The Day My Father Died A mockingbird sang from the branches of the ficus tree outside the bedroom window the same ficus tree he always wanted to chop down and dig out because he said its roots were cracking the foundation of the stucco house my parents shared since before I was born but my mother begged him not to and I know she wished it was her bluebird out in the tree that day – she called it her bluebird because it was blue and a bird even though it was really a jay – but it was the mockingbird who sang a gentle, mournful song with the women in my father's life – his wife of fifty-three years his daughters and a granddaughter his faithful Siamese cat who slept at his feet my yellow Lab – all of that female energy keeping vigil except for the cat who slept as if this were the most natural thing his chest rising and falling tormented by every breath the spaces between them lengthening until finally even she left her perch as if, after all, she couldn't bear it, and went to the other room but the mockingbird stayed and sang. I didn't really care for mockingbirds until the day my father died. The prompt for this poem was to write one long sentence, with free verse line breaks, as an exercise in "stream of consciousness" type poetry. So I'll not be adding additional punctuation to it, as that was not the form I was using when I wrote it. |