Elegy

(for forgotten fathers everywhere)
 

For fearless
my father lay
on that dark
and devilish day
when death
a demon from the deep
broke behind
his silent sleep
 
he froze before
the dusk befell
and all those haunting
ghosts from hell
withdrew just once
their awful spell
 
and so that span of
flesh and bone
heart and wholeness
died alone
as pride with passion
turned to stone
 
no cannon spoke
no curlew call
rose to sound
my father’s fall
as if the frame
whose blood I bear
just burned to ash
all unaware
 
I wept not then and
tears unshed
stilled the tale
with words unsaid
as love and life
and laughter lost
to pain and pride
and passions past
 
but in these blessed
beads of rhyme
I freeze the flow of
father time
his voice within
their circle caught
nor remembered
nor forgot
 
and on that noon
when lamps are lit
and another soon
is laid to sleep
eyes blinded with
that burning night
shall look upon him
and weep
 
[©R.Kanth 2023]

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).