While composing the letter to my daughters that appears elsewhere on turn-stone.com, I had some ideas that I felt were more elegantly expressed in verse than prose.
Bequest
I mourned for my father
When he died so long ago.
I grieved as he slipped
Through the fingers of memory.
He is with me still, though.
As I glance in the mirror
I see him looking back,
A half smile on his face.
I hear him speak through me,
His words and phrases on my lips.
I feel him looking through my eyes
At a world long lost to him.
Although your memories
Of me will blur and fade as well.
You won’t be done with me,
Nor I with you.
I will be there in your words
And in stories you tell over wine.
I, too, will hide behind the mirror
To slip unbidden into your reflection.
I’m so happy you posted this poem. Lines from it stayed with me after you read it at the writers’ forum a couple of weeks ago. I’m so happy to be able to read it to my husband. It moves me with each reading.