From My Mother: Mom, Dad, and Dustin on the Beach of the Great Salt Lake 1997 by Darcy Leech

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Mom, Dad, and Dustin on the Beach of the Great Salt Lake 1997 by Darcy Leech

Photo: Mom, Dad, and Dustin on the Beach of the Great Salt Lake 1997
published as the Kansas Poem of the Week http://150kansaspoems.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/mom-dad-and-dustin-on-the-beach-of-the-great-salt-lake-1997-by-darcy-leech/

My mom’s smile is genuine,
A lilac beaming
In the presence of her Sun.

Indentions in the sand prove
Time’s linear progression,

Her hair yet unblighted,
Carrying midnight’s consistency.

Clear tracks fading as the
Movement slips further
In the past.

Cheekbones
High, soft,
In summer’s hue,
Hopeful.

Each step’s unknown impact,
A future looking back.

My father’s strength:
One whose
Life is in his arms.

Squinting past the camera,
He rests upon a rock
Like caramel corn half eaten,

Just to the left
Of man-made concrete convention

Daylight’s eraser
Removing color to his right.

Dustin sits
In my father’s lap,
Open mouth of a drooling
Big mouth bass;

Muscle tone
Of a well exercised
Jelly fish,

He looks at me
Half aware;

His wheelchair
Perched at the edge
Of parking lot gravel grafted
Like a scar on nature’s beach,

Opening to the ironic splendor
Of a bitter tasting lake.

I took the picture.

Age 11.

Capturing the pinnacle arc
Of a son
To my lilac
Who
Outlived him and weeps,

Still.

Their sky has staple holes –

Maybe that’s how the
Light
Leaked out.