Earthquakes
What if I wasn't just someone standing here in front of you?
What if I played a different song with a different tune?
What if it was blackbird and I sang it real soft?
What would happen if I said it was my dads favorite song,
and that before he went I learned to play it
so he could finally hear it live before he died?
What if I told you he went slowly and I never saw him much?
And that with how it effects the lives of so many people it doesn't even have to touch
that throat cancer is a little less forgiving than it ought to be.
What if I told you that I have his eyes,
so when I look in the mirror all I see is my dad looking back at me
and that every time this happens there are too many things I realize.
What if I told you the last words he ever wrote me
are on the front page of my favorite notebook,
and that they're on a page that cant ever be replaced
and wont ever be replaced,
written in an ink that can't ever be erased
from the back of the eyelids on the front of this face
which has the same crooked nose as
his.
You know...
When I was little he would cut down trees as tall as mountains
that would brush the sky.
Their needle tips painting clouds on that blue canvas on their way by
as they came tumbling down.
And when they fell - the earth would shake.
Now, kids would say things like
"My dad makes more money than your dad makes!"
And in my faded, ripped, over-sized third generation hand-me-down corduroy pants I'd just smile and say:
"Yeah? Well my dad makes earthquakes."
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