Still Life

I can remember when my father’s hands
lay these bricks, the pathway carefully dug,
a sand foundation for the old clay slabs,
garnished years before from some old ruin
and stacked behind the house,

as if they had been waiting for this moment,
to be shaped once again, into a walkway,
laid into a simple pattern that would last
a generation or more,
time worn, with moss leaking in the cracks,

a still life of hands once strong, once sure,
now frail, too human for words,
leaving behind something hard and tender,
stronger than life;
stronger than time.

About this poem

I have been in Virginia, visiting my parents for Christmas. While there, I took this picture of a brick walkway my father did indeed lay many years ago.

My father is 81.

Tom