Anniversary

It is one year today since my father died. I am shocked at how life has adjusted to his absence. Memory seems like such an intangible thing. I want to conjure up his presence through memory but even after a single year that proves difficult. A person is so much more than what we can remember as the memory fades, there is something mysterious and amazing about presence, that extraordinary synthesis of personality and physique that makes a person what they are.

Something of that mystery I have tried to communicate in this poem.

ANNIVERSARY

I wonder what I still have after a year
as memories fade and those I don't want stick;
like the shape of your mouth on the bed,
the colour of your skin, the silence.

I have a trowel that was yours
and I keep it, not that I will use it,
but its shape will not blunt
and the handle fits my grip dependably.