Memorial

Summer

He worked nights, leaving as we climbed
the tall narrow staircase to our shared room,
up into the summer heat, the steel fan
in the hallway window
pulling cool, leafy breezes
from our waving trees.

We heard the kitchen screen-door
slap shut, the Pontiac roaring to life,
and watched as slowly he backed down
the dark driveway, and was gone.

And gladly we glided through our misty dreams,
flying over tree-tops, baseball games
and cool swimming pools,

when finally the robin’s enthusiasm
and the fresh morning sun
flashing through green leaves
woke us as we heard the car stop
and Dad call cheerfully, “I’m home!”

The air already scented with bacon and coffee,
we flew down the groaning stairs,
two steps at a bound,
and eagerly started another golden
summer’s day.


Winter

One winter day I did something wrong, and
he got angry and drew his worn leather belt
from the loops of his grey, stained work trousers
To teach me a lesson.

Terrified, I ran upstairs to the big closet
and trembled behind coats and sweaters,
as heavily he came up the steps,
righteous anger ringing in his voice,
tears flowing down my cheeks;

when my big brother, teenage and strong,
called defiance to him and drew him down
into the back yard to fight him
and save me, angered by his
memory of so many other beatings,
determined to stop it now!


But facing his own father
he could not fight back, and
weeping, I watched my dad
pummel my brother’s defenseless face,
far worse than any beating
I would have gotten.

From kitchen window,
I screamed to them both
to stop!

That was when my father saw,
in the kitchen window’s glare
his own father’s angry eyes,
and felt his father’s fists
landing hard on his own face,
and he stopped and
embraced my brother.

Spring

Seven years after my father died
my first child, my son, was born in spring,
and in the gleaming, sterile room
I first held him in my arms
as, with his impossibly wide, blue eyes
he calmly gazed right into my raw soul,
and I felt in a sudden rush of warmth,
a timeless love
and at last discovered
the reason for my life.

It was then
I understood my father.

In my son’s face I saw my own
and felt my father’s eyes gazing
in warm wonder on me
as I glowed with
unconditional love for my son.


(30 Jan 2011/ 2017)

Photo: Steven Federle holding Brian Federle, March 1986

The Other Brother

It was a hot day in the field

when, returning at last

bone-tired, sore from

tending your stiff-necked flock,

I saw bonfires,

extravagant blazes lighting

the way to our house,

but not for me

home late from

work,

so I asked your servant

“why such celebration?”

That’s when my anger exploded;

…poor fellow, he bore my rage

and yelping away

cried it wasn’t his fault!

No, it wasn’t.

It isn’t.

It’s You.

You ask me to obey

and obediently I honor you every day.

With sweat and callused hands,

I cajole this stingy land

to give up a little wheat.

With my blood

I water these fields;

but when I wanted to show

my friends a little generosity,

I asked you for a stingy goat,

a meager feast, and

you said “no.”

So here he is, come home at last,

profligate brother…prodigal,

wastrel, drunkard,

sinner!

He’s back

and suddenly the prize calf

I worked so hard to make so fat is slain,

a royal feast for your favorite son

(though somewhat late) come home again!

But,

as always

my anger fades

in the glow of your summer love.

I don’t like this!

but you tell me

that your love does not diminish

but increases with the giving…

and, after all,

it is not every day that one’s brother

is to life recalled.

So for you, father,

I’ll look him in the eye

and let him back

into my life.

My Sister's Birthday

We watch as toddlers
run squealing through the house,
laughter bounding through bright halls,
a knee-level storm of pure joy.

They punctuate our grown-up conversation
as the slide-show begins.

Now you’re the bright eyed infant!

Mom was so young and pretty
Holding you close
in her strong, gleaming arms,

as the cousins, delighted, cry
“Look! Grandma’s a baby!”

In wonder we watch
the years of youth and school
love and weddings
and bright new babies,

pause on the haunting eyes
of those gentle people
whom we’ve loved
then lost
to the good night.

As your party continues,
I see in the eyes
of four generations,
a century’s worth
of smiling for the camera
a cloud of love
transcending both years and death.

So don’t worry about your age, dear sister.
clearly
we never really grow old.

(5/11/2014)

Contact

I search the narrow rooms of memory
through steep, childhood hallways
under high ceilings, past dim, flowered lamps,
when, trembling, I hear echoes calling me
in deep tones of summer thunder
to our willow tree out back
just as the blinding lightning
contacts
and shatters the still-living wood.

Afraid,

but compelled by my father’s gentle voice,
I retreat
to another room
in my mind.

In the kitchen, at the top of the long, painted staircase,
I hear small, shrill squeaks and low, electric hums
coming from your ham radio set,
and walking down, I see you,
hunched in the red glow
of your magic box, calling softly
into your silver microphone,
“W8PNW calling CQ, calling CQ, calling CQ”

O lonely angler, you cast gossamer lines into the eternal, black sea
looking for a catch, any response, any acknowledgement,
but I’m with you! Standing by your shoulders,
I hear the distant human voice respond
“K8QJZ to W8PNW, receiving you loud and clear!”

I feel your joy of connection
as, quickly you fill out your special postcard,
(American Bald Eagles triumphantly unfurling your call letters)
to mail to your Newfoundland friend.

This, too, is contact.

Another soul found, identified, and filed
in your list of ham-buddies, and I grin with you
as you sign off
and resume your patient search.

(7/14/2010)

Thanksgiving

Full from the feast

table laded

with fragrant dressing,

steam of onion and celery,

tender turkey and

five kinds of pies

The family gathered.

My parents smiled

at our busy banter

brothers

and sisters nudging and

teasing,  beaming

in the glow

of that happy day

so long ago.

Now you and I gather

our sons around us;

again we pause, pray

and eat the bounty

of this bright Thanksgiving Day.

They say that some things,

kind hearts,

hearty laughs,

enduring love

are so good

they persist long down  

the thankful

generations.

-----------
(for Brian we are so thankful)

Rockville Cemetery

Among broken stones

folded over soft grass

we linger.

See how the fallen pillar

leans

on the graven rock?

Someday

they’ll search

for us, too.

In this garden,

beyond

all calamity,

beneath sunny lawns,

in a deeper shade

we’ll fill our own space

and in peace
with you

we’ll wait.

(2012,  2017)

My Mother's Gift

Photo: Brian Federle

“It is our emptiness in the presence of the abyss of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.”   Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. (for Brian)

You visited me near dawn. 

I saw you
and felt your joy
and heard your voice,
like a memory of waking to bird-song
on a warm, Ohio summer's morning -

you used to sing "rise and shine!"
bringing me bleary-eyed, bounding
into my childhood's
glowing day.

And last night
I saw you again.

I love my dreams about you.
You sweep away
all fear
with your calm voice.

But always after,
when I wake up,
you are gone,
and I face another indifferent day
in this agnostic world.

But this time was different!
"You are glowing!" I said
from the deep mist of my sleep,

"It is because 
He Is."

And though I could not see
what you ceaselessly see,
I gazed upon the 
overwhelming light
enfolding you,
and I tried
to find its source
but could only feel
its sudden glory...
its unremitting,
warm embrace
of unconditional
love.

I did not want to wake...
I wanted to stay with you,
in the warmth
of this revelation,

but of course,
I returned to the morning
to the pale sun,
to the granite and steel world,
to the darkness of the mirror,
to life,

and yet,
your  gift remains
in the glow of faith
beyond 
my failing sight.




(10 Jan 2011; 6 Dec. 2016: 26 April 2017)

On the Feast of St. Catherine

The poet on the radio

earnestly read her expert lines

about the sad state

of the world,

the failure

of governments,

churches,

parents,

lovers,

the certain decline of

the cosmos,

the end of the world.

Her lines were exquisitely made,

and I listened with admiration and envy

to perfect rhymes, subtle

metaphor, nuanced images

until I felt both elation and

despair.

Then I looked around me,

to the riot of life in

my backyard,

the shrill ecstasy of birds

the shout of the rose.

My children gathered today

for a Sunday feast, full of

laughter and my corny jokes.

Maybe the poet didn’t have a backyard,

could gazed only on bleak

city walls; maybe her lover

walked out or

her children never call.

I worry about the poor;

whenever a grimy hand out-

stretches, I see the pierced hand of Christ,

offering me gifts, pearls of great price!

(29 April 2012)

How Shall I Remember You?

How shall I remember you
searching memory’s dark, dry rooms?

Under high ceilings and dim attic lamps
I only hear echoes of my childhood’s lost past.

You’re calling me outside, past the dark, screen door
onto the back porch, to watch the gathering evening storm,

and there I see the willow tree dancing in the wind
its long green leaves thrashing, its supple branches bend

when following its sure, straight path, the lightning struck it down
and, like all things ultimately, smashed it dying into the ground.

Although I’ve searched these dry, long years after both of you had died,
my tears are done, I see the sun, and my flashing anger is now satisfied.

November 1978

i.
November lies in wait, violent month
stripping life from the garden
wind ripping leaves from living trees.

So much can happen after the harvest,
life can be broken,
the grave made rich.


ii.


Kennedy rode exposed in the cold Dallas sun
when a bullet ripped the November air, and
dark winds ran riot through fields of heaven,

dirty cyclones scattering dust
into our stinging eyes

and we cried under the black crepe
draped over blank, empty windows.























iii.



November, 1978, loomed large
in the twilight haze as we waited
and uneasily watched the news.

In thirsty Jonestown
the November heat swelled
the bodies of black children,
huddled in the arms of still mothers,
empty paper cups strewn on the ground
dripping purple Kool-Aid, happy drink for a hot day,
poisoned with bitter megalomania.

The stench of fear
permeated Geary Boulevard,
filling the looming, empty halls
of the People's Temple.

Protected by the glass wall of my television
I observed this distant slaughter
my eyes spared from the sting
of personal tears.


iii

But November soon became personal,
and quickly took my father
and left me stunned,
empty and cold as frozen Ohio.




Bad comes in threes,
and in my rented car,
on the way home from the cemetery,
I heard of bloody mayhem in San Francisco,
madness splattering City Hall,
in the thick blood of Moscone and Milk,
struck down on a cloudy
November day.

(22 Nov. 2013)

She Sits in the Old, Red Chair

She  sits in the old, red chair

feet up, the red crush of the ottoman

giving rest to tired ankles.

At ninety-nine, her face is lined

and thin, cheekbones jut beneath

piercing young eyes, as hands, 

thin, pale skin barely concealing

vein and bone, lie in repose in her lap

as we talk, remembering all the days

and find her mind a crystal stream

vibrant, alive with a life of love

filled with places past 

and people gone.

The Homecoming

When you were in Vietnam

we got your letters, two or three at once

and then the whole house buzzed like a nest

of honey drunk bees as we poured over

your every word.

We kids imagined you, strong, tough,

blazing with righteous American fury

cutting down those dirty commies,

but Mom and Dad

read each letter more slowly

glancing at each other

with darker looks.

Then one day we got the recording you made,

tiny plastic reels, shiny brown tape wound

in fragile loops; your voice!

just like you were in the room, speaking

re-assuring, everyday chat about R&R

and shopping in Bangkok. Finally,

the tape nearly spent, you said that

you were coming home soon.

And one bright July morning

you came home! Your hat was rakishly tilted,

a Lucky cigarette carelessly drooping

from the corner of your grinning mouth,

all paratrooper swagger, gold braid running

through your buttoned shoulder loops,

colored ribbons and medals all over your chest.

As you walked through the door

I stood aside, awestruck, shy.

You sat like a visitor in your own home

and we opened the packages you brought for us,

Christmas in July, as one by one we held

our Asian wonders, and watched

as Mom held your hand and

Dad searched your eyes.

But you were tired, so upstairs in my room

you took a midday nap, and when Mom told me

to wake you up for supper, I nudged your shoulder

and you bolted,

breathless,

down the steps,

into the quiet street

and stood at tense attention,

(the neighbors all gawking),

as you waved your M-16

made of air

and memory,

and waited

for the morters

to fall

and kill us all.

Then the light returned to your eyes.

Slowly you walked back to the house

and gently took me by my shoulders

and told me to never,

never

touch you when you were asleep,

and I never asked you why.

(11/11/2010)

Ordination

“What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”  Thomas Merton

+

deep in this cathedral

love resounds

through the bright air

of paradise

love rebounds

playful, full of

prayer.

Oh, hear the organ’s

profundo ring
laughter

as love pierces

your living heart

as, prostrate,

love breaks open

your breathless soul.

(18 November 2013 on the ordination of my brother)