sipping dew in a wine glass.
looking at the lady in the glass window distilling last night’s rain drops.
there’s frost in the shadows of (my) thoughts.
but we’re in a hot country where sweat leaks from the folds of our flesh.
the sun rises and sets sooner than memories
of father, mother, all still children
raising children older than
their confused love
go.
Tag: father
how it felt
i last spoke with him on the phone on monday. he died on friday.
i did not hug nor kiss him when i first saw him lying there. it just did not seem right because i only said hello pa whenever we came to visit him when he was still alive.
i went and touched his hand though and looked at his sleeping face. this was the first time in a long time i looked at him more than just a few seconds. it was probably the first time ever.
and i wondered, no i asked, in my head. he should be able to hear my thoughts now, right? well, yeah, so i asked him how he felt. how it felt.
tick tock
father’s bed is made, but no one has changed his bed sheet since he died in his sleep almost two weeks ago.
there are two clocks in this room. they had been souvenirs from two different banks. and both of them let out incessant tick-tocking sounds,
which must have been the last sounds he had heard.
_
i put my hand on his pillow, sit on the bed and then lie down. i immediately realize that almost everything that can be seen from this position is still the same with what i had seen when i was still a child sleeping on this bed between my mother and father.
_
i get up and look at his things, scattered around his bed. never worn shirts and ties, still in their packaging. bed sheets, some old some new. house clothes, washed and folded. coins, in small plastic containers on his dressing table labeled Rp 25,- Rp 50,- Rp 100,- in his handwriting. and even more coins that he had yet organized, coins that have now been withdrawn from circulation.
_
no one was allowed in this room when he was still alive. except for my daughter.