Behind
the barn sits a small house, screened
floor
to ceiling three sides to catch a breeze;
solid,
with a door, on the other. Aged chairs
furnish
this retreat from Summer's heat: a place
to
read pulp fiction, smoke, sip Irish whiskey―
without
prying eyes. Then it was real, now
I
return only in dreams―the night takes
me
back to that different life, another
reality.
Seated in an old chair,
wicker
with soft cushions, looking across
my
grandmother's flower garden, past
grandfather's
vegetable plot, book closed
on
my lap, I see the familiar trees—
the
pear that held me then and still, the big
beech,
chestnuts edge the street. I'm waiting
for
my father to come looking for me,
as
he always does: to sit, to talk, to
reveal
secrets from our past. After crossing
the
sea, he crosses the street, walking past
the
chestnuts, across the lawn, under the beech,
past
the pear—knowing it was she that bound
me
to it as him to her—to the Summer
house,
and takes the other chair. He can talk
now,
as he couldn't talk then, of love, feelings,
failures,
the past. He's free now, free of chains.
After
loading his pipe and firing with a match,
he
begins our story, head wreathed in smoke,
always
picking up just where he left off,
weaving
another strand of common thread into
our
fabric. A recurring dream, encounter,
vision,
in my night; awake, it haunts my day:
no
memories of his words remain, even
though
I hear him tell our story, see the flowers,
the
gardens, the trees, particularly the pear,
the
lawn. Last night it all came back again:
I
was there, sitting with him, a quiet evening
in
my Summer house, listening, always
listening,
and remembering not a word.
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