Too Sensitive For This Uncouth World

His anguished howls peeled mountaintops, boiled seas,

Tore away his roof for stars.

He dove into life’s marrow, scraped up pain and didn’t let go.

He gave the world his radiant third face smile,

Even as his private face bore witness to his raging battlefield of pain and loss.

That force field composed of blind hearts

Allowing people to smile, heart deep and true, unburdened,

Was a gift or curse he never knew.

Words; most, the herd, we use as playthings,

A comfortable though flimsy reed (oft’ times breaking) to rest our words in false reliance

Were steel bonds he wanted, expected, kept,

Settling for nothing less, compliance broken over and over on

His ethic bar, set too high for even him.

In his life, no one reached it,

Though in the thicket and heather of living, one came close.

Forty years he wounded for the pole vault’s clanging, falling bars;

Yet more marrow scraped and tossed within,

Hidden in his bonhomie by smiles a mile wide.

So many never saw or knew, ever the actor in his kindness.

Blessed, I traveled in the marrow with him as

Failures mounted mountain high in flavors the snowflake beauty always melted.

Just ‘fore he spirited away, he said, so tiredly I drowned in dread,

“Dad, I’m just tired of living”.

I offered my life if he would but stay, sincere but no solution, a straw.

So now I carry his pain for him, for of course that beauty is organic.

He confirmed what my fortitude could not;

marrow is where the action is, the yeast fermenting far sweeter than common surface rot.

Even in death, he is giving!

In his stead I scrape the core of bones life throws unceasing,

whilst marveling on the blessing he is, the magic gift God gave me,

Now boldly knowing and growing, by due from my son, ever-increasing.

My joy of him battles losses unrelenting pain,

‘pon my soul ‘ere departs to where again.