The Accident

Taconic Parkway, Beacon, NY

I never saw his car:
the mangled metal.

I saw the tree
cracking in two
upon impact,
opening itself, not falling,
creating a path
upward, its bark revealing
the circle lines of time.

He ascended the tree trunk
at a ninety degree angle
defying gravity
his arms stretched out
the bare upper branches
were the last earthly thing
his fingers touched
before he flew,
wingless,
into the great soup bowl of souls.
My father passed over
to the other side
of the Hudson River,
his last breath audible
only to nuthatches and cardinals
building new nests in the treetops,
sturdy cups of mud and feathers,
dried grass, crooked twigs:
it was the first day
of spring.

Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, Volume 14:2015.