WHEN KELLY FLEW OVER
For my father
When Kelly flew over the farm
with your ashes,
the field you had chosen
as resting place waited
for you, October
light keen
as a ploughman’s blade
slicing through sod.
When we saw Kelly’s
plane rising
over the loblollies,
trailing its message-
smoke, we knew
you’d settled yourself
into alfalfa stubble,
eternally comfortable
inside the dirt
you had tilled.
What a helluva way
to come home,
Daddy. Oh
you knew all along
just what you wanted,
a cropduster’s yellow plane
diving so low
the weeds shimmied,
while you floated down,
in no hurry
at last, to the earth
you claimed
always knew you
better than
you knew yourself.
Some of you may remember when I posted this poem in an earlier version after I began "Here, Where I Am." I like this revision much better. It's the dedicatory poem in my new manuscript.
