The Strange Bequest

There was a man,
a slim man,
whose head was bedecked
with a white cloud
and whose eyes saw dreams
he could not articulate.

He sat one day
staring into space
and when I questioned him, he said,
‘I am sitting and watching
the grass grow.’
I hesitated far too long
and have lived to regret it.

I wish the courage had been mine
to have asked him
to share his dreams with me.
For he bequeathed to me
a mind that does not rest.

I have the thought that his father
and father before him,
wrestled the same misty vision
which now is mine to set in motion.

I question this strange bequest,
for I have not
the staunch heart required
to lay to rest my ancestor’s anguish.

Papa, I plead now,
to replace my heart with hot ore,
inject me with a vial
of celestial courage
and fuse my spine with tempered steel.

There is so little time.

 

 

 

art by Claudia Hallissey