My African Father – a poem by Daniel Kemper

My African Father
 
I sleep and wake and still he does not rise,
my African Father, with those uncanny eyes
not brown, not silver, but like a storm at dawn,
forever changing hue -and moving on.
Three days have toiled with rain and fog and wind
and have not torn them off— and even now
the fitful storm unfolds, a little thinned
and gray and twisted up like sheets right now,
but still, it won't quite let me wake from this,
the loss of him. I sleep and know that dreams
will be the only place where I can speak
to him: In every drop of rain, a kiss;
in every broken shaft of light, the gleams
that came from loving eyes; in the physique
of leather coats that gusts of time can press
and mold around my chest, his strongest love,
embrace, and faith. But still each moment grows
inexorably farther from the next,
and spring, it must arrive, but nonetheless
these gusts of rain contrive to make that love
a tragic grasp. My fingers try to close
around the grief, and bodily perplexed
as time slides through my hands, I can't let go.
But ever-gentle time extends my fist,
my fingers, thumb, and grasp, and waking once
again, you're gone. You're gone. We cannot trade
our tears for life- the sacrifice is not
accepted here. Though wakefullnesses grow
between the fitful dreams that they untwist
we weep the more for love, but more than once
we've had the thought: By grief is love betrayed?
Shall tears condemn our joy? Why should we not
rejoice? He's passed into a world improved
infinitely on our own. I know, I know
and now that time has stroked my hand some more,
I wonder is this selfishness alone?
No! Unjustly that depraves the name
of love. And Jesus wept. It's not a sin.
and now the further time's caress has moved
my hand and brushed my bangs, the more the glow
within his smile flashes out, the more
the deep inside his swollen heart is shown,
and yet the more it's somehow not the same.
How soft his eyes once stirred and how his chin,
his humble half-tucked chin and smile, approved
of me, how stress would vanish in his shrug
and spreading arms that greet me with a hug.
 
But waking startled- sleep had come again-
his face departs again, and now his hand,
that he can only take into the dream again.
It starts again! –Despite the spring's demand.
Abba, my African father, abba-bee!
You really were a part of me and now
that you have been cut off— because that part
of me's been amputated— I can see
simple things that none can disavow.
The amputation hurts! It's not for art,
philosophy, or selfish things we cry:
the amputation hurts! The only piece
remaining lives in memory and prayer,
and what the mortal amputation brings
are aches and burns and phantom pain. We cry,
surprised, when some familiar times release
these hollow chills again, when maybe they're
set off at night by wind in leaves that sings
as he once did, or by a bible verse,
like Jesus wept. The amputation hurts!
But faithful time still stretches on and three
more days have passed. I wake and rise and still
he does not come. He won't return from there,
my African Father— Quite the reverse,
one day I'll go to him. For now, the shirts
and ties must still be ironed, guests must be
attended to, and Martha might just still
need help; and anyway, where is Mary, where?
The funeral's not until tomorrow. Wait.
The clock extends the space between our tears
and so our mortal contemplations spin
unchanged, unchecked until at last, it’s time:
the funeral’s here and we’re all standing by
the empty- Look, his son! I recognize
my brother-in-law with ease. But grief can’t wait.
The women rush the pit and it appears,
as moments teeter past, that they might go
down too. He weeps and holds them back, and time,
it too, holds back. The rain. Just now. Goodbye.
And so my father passes on, his eyes
in every thunderstorm that fades at dawn
forever changing you -and moving on.
 

Daniel Kemper is an unaccomplished man. He has walked The Bridge of No Return across the Sachong, and returned. He’s carried an acolyte’s cross at dawn and heard poetry at The Gates of Hell at midnight (Rodin Gardens). He’s touched the bones of Dinkenesh (“Lucy”) and climbed Masada at Dawn. He’s been How Berkeley Can You Be and walked the Pamlico Sound barefoot. He’s brought two children into the world and taken his father out of it. He’s written when there was no one he could tell and he writes now to bring out things of value and to engage and embrace all those who are doing the same.