In Memoriam

Three words comprise the frame my son last made: his soft "Hey, dad" to greet me on the phone, his single, loving "Papa" with our last embrace— and in between?.....just Mark, the man to fill a thousand frames invisibly in love that clings unbound to arms, to blood, to tears... who threw his history away unowned and paid for it with memory alone. Sixteen years are here to testify that sweetness in the settlement was not enough, that though the picture glows with spirit timelessness, it shuns the touch, the laughter, the uncertainty that spears the mind, seizes on the unexplored, and must rejoice inside the now. It is for you who read, to intercede in the rejoicing...I must let it go a little while, although I know there is no need to pray that Mark and I will follow through within the morning's deathless day. ~