Proverbs: My Father

When he calls me, he tells me his longitude and latitude. When I call him, he answers with the date. Orienting himself? "Who am I--there I am"?

He's seen me four times in 16 years, but still he says he misses me.

He sends me letters comparing America to Rome and Greece, with the occasional $20 money order or bar of chocolate.

He lives in his parents' 100 year-old house. His parents have passed away. He rarely leaves home. He could go on for hours about boarding the windows for winter, fixing the front deck, the tree in the front yard that never gets enough darkness, the squirrels who terrorize his yard.

Once upon a time, he was working toward his Ph.D. He had a family. He had a brilliant mind to offer the world. Now, time has stopped for him. He has no one but his sister, nothing but his house. No dreams of a future. "I don't know where all the time goes," he repeats over and over. He will never quite understand why.

He experiences more range of emotion reading an Ezra Pound biography than some people experience in a lifetime.

He tells me what a great job I'm doing without him.

He blames the government for the loss of his children.

When he came to visit me, he showed up in a three-piece suit.

He taught me a lot about the dark side of the world, and of the mind. Through him, I began to learn the importance of making peace with it.

I once found poems of his in our garage. One of them said, "I've no one to talk to, Paper, but you." I thought, "Screw you."

And when he tells me how glad he is to talk to me, I feel a warmth spread to a very hard-to-reach place in my heart.