“With your dignity intact…”

by DRM

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
mis­er­able, you and your chil­dren,
dri­ving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fear­ful hypochon­driac
and his fret­ful son and daugh­ter,
ask­ing direc­tions, try­ing to read
the com­pli­cated, fad­ing map of cures.
But with your dig­nity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heart­beat
under your neck­tie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with sto­ries.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the win­dow
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are bloom­ing in side yards
all over Iowa, still wel­com­ing you.

by Ted Kooser
from Delights & Shad­ows, Cop­per Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004