Before You Were My Father
There must have been some leftover
Ticket stub mementos
Of your other life as a bus driver,
Bachelor, mystery man about town:
Faded polaroids containing
A slice of arm, of back
Though as a driver, you would have seemed
Mainly a rear view
To all the people on the tour buses you drove.
Some days you surely would have intruded,
Unknowingly, behind the welcoming hugs captured
In still black and whites;
The practical jokes breaking out in transit;
And tearful departures caught in snapshots.
In their lives you passed by so quickly,
A momentary flicker of shadow
Forever hovering just at the edge
Of their days journeys,
Not even remembered as an afterthought.
You would have stayed there
In the background,
Your image often captured while
Taking the furtive smoke,
Stretching out your legs,
Checking the tire pressure.
Though we did not know
One another then
I can visualize the carefulness with which
You would have tailored your own route.
If I could gather up all the scattered,
Torn and trampelled puzzle pieces
Of your once upon a time life-
Thousands of amputated parts of you,
In my imaginings-
Now lodged in a thousand dusty shoeboxes
In the tops of strangers closets;
Maybe then I would no longer be haunted
With the idea that the invisible fragments of you
Carry on a secret existence
In obscure places you never even visited
And beyond all reach of any capacity
To locate or recognize them.
What a wonderful tribute to a loved father, beautifully imagined.
Nostalgic and warm, like a balmy summer evening, with just a hint of diesel exhaust. Enjoyable read!
It's not until we become adults and realize all the moments of our parents' lives that somehow led to us. Lost snapshots of time they themselves don't remember but are embedded in memories of strangers. A beautiful re-engineering of a life.
Brilliant. Not all fathers would have so many amputated pieces of themselves in such uncaring custody. A tour bus driver eh? You sucked every good morsel out of the concept and yes it was lovingly done and I too can smell the hint of diesel and hear the wordless background chatter beneath the sound of the engine. Loved this!