Things of My Father
Winter morning light
resolves from black to grey
as things acquire edges
and certainty this Christmas day.
Things of my father
catch the slightest light:
the wan, green-papered halls,
carpet thick, gnarled,
tales from ocean trips
and Geographics in the bathroom stand;
closets filled with belts and ties,
cedar, starch and mothballs;
tapping branches and grandfather clocks
talking, tocking through the house.
Those people, places, quiet now,
as silent as this postcard house
with snow falling, round and round-
a school of white fish, swirling.