CREEK ROAD GANG
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Lynn Ciesielski:
Honor Thy Father
a Prose Poem
copyright 2010
When she told me how urgent things were the corners of my eyes trickled tears. They turned quickly to bathwater torrents. My voice stumbled like stones across the pools those tears made. How could I say goodbye when I barely said hello.
“Show me,” you said. “Don’t tell me” whenever I expressed “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” Show me is just what you did with the love you offered like a hard hat. You loved my needs and my senses. Later I took my gift for words and after years of watching you sweat, learned to build little havens for hearts to live in.
You showed me with the smooth beauty of the pinewood cabinets that you stripped and varnished one summer, knotholes unbroken symbols of your love for our family, my sister and her family who moved into that house when your mother passed away and left it to you and your sister.
You showed me with bouquets of scents you painted and pleasured me with year after year: sour smelling bottle caps filled with stale Genesee beer you placed among your prized tomatoes to stave off enemy slugs, the cigar smell that scratched the back of my throat, the cool mint scent of the Austrian pine you scrutinized among twenty others at the nursery weeks before Christmas.
You showed your love with the whine of your saw as it volleyed with country music to compete for headliner status in your basement workshop. You showed it in the rain of the hammer that drove twelve two penny nails into the bookshelves you built me on your only day off, and the sound of you hollering at us to stop fighting because mom wasn’t feeling well and you had just gotten off work.
Then there were the visions. You showed me the roses you brought mom for special occasions, the incredible garden you sowed, the kisses you delivered to mom’s cheek each day when you got home from work at 4:00, the motor grease you used fifteen minutes and half a pint of D & L cleaner to absolve from your fingers and the visible grime creased in the lines that ran across your forehead, lines of worry that I probably put there those nights I came home drunk and then when I moved across the country.
Later when I had my own child I learned to show her I loved her with my hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. but I knew she needed to hear the words too so I told her every chance I got.. As she grew older and I knew you as a grandfather, I tried to reconnect with you, re-establish that connection that we never really had, ‘chat it up’. All of my attempts went dead. Years went by and I bought my first house. I strutted like a robin. I had something tangible to show you now. I took you by the hand to lead you there but you wouldn’t get up. “When I feel better,” you said again and again.
By then the lung cancer and the emphysema sucked so much life from your torso that your chest was curved in like a tunnel and the breath through your lungs sounded like the wind whistling through one. I knew then, that you wouldn’t come, couldn’t show me anymore and I couldn’t show you. The disease progressed quickly. Hospice came and left. They set up a hospital bed in your living room but I kept a hard nugget in my chest. I mouthed words of love but my negative judgments made me hate.
I resented you for not having a college education and for working with your hands and not your mind though I had no idea how much mental work was involved in your job
as a skilled machinist and in your carpentry around the house. I resented you for living in a working class neighborhood and raising me there, for disciplining me too harshly when I was growing up, for an entire laundry list of variously stained articles, things I should throw away.
One day I was going about my business in my new house and my sister called, “Dad doesn’t have much longer. It could be today” That’s when the tears began and the feeling
Like someone crumpled the paper where I held my history. How could I forgive you and how could I forgive myself?
I sprayed her with my feelings like the day I squirted her with the hose as a teenager. She raised her voice, “If that’s the way you feel, get over here and tell him, not me, because if you wait it will be too late” Then she hung up. I washed my face quickly and told me daughter what was happening. She was ten and knew Poppy was sick but, like me, didn’t realize it was so close. I brought her to a neighbor’s house and took off.
When I got there you were asleep and mom and my sisters were there. I asked to be alone with you. Then I climbed into your bed. I wanted you to hold me and make this bad dream go away. I drained my cup out, told you how I felt all of these years, told you I’d miss you and begged your forgiveness for my anger, my rebellion and bad behavior and all of the worry I caused you. Then you woke for a second and told me you loved me.
Mom came in and told me that I needed to let you sleep then. I got up and left. Soon after I got home and settled in to make my daughter some lunch, mom called. You were gone. I told my daughter. We looked at family photo albums, remembered and cried.
“Show me,” you said. “Don’t tell me” whenever I expressed “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” Show me is just what you did with the love you offered like a hard hat. You loved my needs and my senses. Later I took my gift for words and after years of watching you sweat, learned to build little havens for hearts to live in.
You showed me with the smooth beauty of the pinewood cabinets that you stripped and varnished one summer, knotholes unbroken symbols of your love for our family, my sister and her family who moved into that house when your mother passed away and left it to you and your sister.
You showed me with bouquets of scents you painted and pleasured me with year after year: sour smelling bottle caps filled with stale Genesee beer you placed among your prized tomatoes to stave off enemy slugs, the cigar smell that scratched the back of my throat, the cool mint scent of the Austrian pine you scrutinized among twenty others at the nursery weeks before Christmas.
You showed your love with the whine of your saw as it volleyed with country music to compete for headliner status in your basement workshop. You showed it in the rain of the hammer that drove twelve two penny nails into the bookshelves you built me on your only day off, and the sound of you hollering at us to stop fighting because mom wasn’t feeling well and you had just gotten off work.
Then there were the visions. You showed me the roses you brought mom for special occasions, the incredible garden you sowed, the kisses you delivered to mom’s cheek each day when you got home from work at 4:00, the motor grease you used fifteen minutes and half a pint of D & L cleaner to absolve from your fingers and the visible grime creased in the lines that ran across your forehead, lines of worry that I probably put there those nights I came home drunk and then when I moved across the country.
Later when I had my own child I learned to show her I loved her with my hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. but I knew she needed to hear the words too so I told her every chance I got.. As she grew older and I knew you as a grandfather, I tried to reconnect with you, re-establish that connection that we never really had, ‘chat it up’. All of my attempts went dead. Years went by and I bought my first house. I strutted like a robin. I had something tangible to show you now. I took you by the hand to lead you there but you wouldn’t get up. “When I feel better,” you said again and again.
By then the lung cancer and the emphysema sucked so much life from your torso that your chest was curved in like a tunnel and the breath through your lungs sounded like the wind whistling through one. I knew then, that you wouldn’t come, couldn’t show me anymore and I couldn’t show you. The disease progressed quickly. Hospice came and left. They set up a hospital bed in your living room but I kept a hard nugget in my chest. I mouthed words of love but my negative judgments made me hate.
I resented you for not having a college education and for working with your hands and not your mind though I had no idea how much mental work was involved in your job
as a skilled machinist and in your carpentry around the house. I resented you for living in a working class neighborhood and raising me there, for disciplining me too harshly when I was growing up, for an entire laundry list of variously stained articles, things I should throw away.
One day I was going about my business in my new house and my sister called, “Dad doesn’t have much longer. It could be today” That’s when the tears began and the feeling
Like someone crumpled the paper where I held my history. How could I forgive you and how could I forgive myself?
I sprayed her with my feelings like the day I squirted her with the hose as a teenager. She raised her voice, “If that’s the way you feel, get over here and tell him, not me, because if you wait it will be too late” Then she hung up. I washed my face quickly and told me daughter what was happening. She was ten and knew Poppy was sick but, like me, didn’t realize it was so close. I brought her to a neighbor’s house and took off.
When I got there you were asleep and mom and my sisters were there. I asked to be alone with you. Then I climbed into your bed. I wanted you to hold me and make this bad dream go away. I drained my cup out, told you how I felt all of these years, told you I’d miss you and begged your forgiveness for my anger, my rebellion and bad behavior and all of the worry I caused you. Then you woke for a second and told me you loved me.
Mom came in and told me that I needed to let you sleep then. I got up and left. Soon after I got home and settled in to make my daughter some lunch, mom called. You were gone. I told my daughter. We looked at family photo albums, remembered and cried.
* * *
Biographical Note for
Lynn Ciesielski: My background is in special education. I have an
MS from SUNY College at Buffalo and I taught in city schools for
eighteen years. I retired from my career a little over a year ago. Now
I spend most of my time enjoying my family, volunteering, and writing
and performing poetry. I have been published in Nomad's Choir, Blue
Collar Review and SpeedPoet's Zine among others. Lynn's prose poem "An Eve to Await" appeared in our May 2010 issue.
