Pathway
I saw my father walking in my garden
and where he walked,
the garden lengthened
to a changing mile
which held all seasons of the year.
He did not see me, staring from my window,
a child's star face, hurt light from stricken time,
and he had treaded spring and summer
grasses before I thought to stir, follow him.
Autumn's cathedral, open to the weather, rose
high above, flawed amber, gorgeous ruin; his shadow
stretched before me, cappa magna,
my own, obedient, trailed like a nun.
He did not turn. I heard the rosaries of birds.
The trees, huge doors, swung open and I knelt.
He stepped into a silver room of cold;
a narrow bed of ice stood glittering,
and though my father wept, he could not leave,
but had to strip, then shiver in his shroud,
till winter palmed his eyes for frozen bulbs,
or sliced his tongue, a silencing of worms.
The moon a simple headstone without words.
• From Ritual Lighting: Laureate Poems, published by Picador.
