Poem Begun on the Day of My Father's funeral and Completed on the first Day of the New Year

Dean Rader

Light the last light and lift—
and lift again in to that obscurity—

blue-skinned sky & what it cannot lead to—

the always immolated flesh of this world’s bone-shell—

what lasts? what goes like a trumpet blast

through the feathered

ear of the angel? There

& being & the evening air—

is in everything plummet—
& yet we go even some-
times rise—have you wondered?

that dark wick—flame both
inward & below light the first fire—

what does not burn

might still die—& yet

what does not might grow—may graft—

   like leaf & branch together—
                     live this long lull
before the last:
         let this
               let my words

leave their black axe next to the tree
                  & may
            the grace
         of grace

feel through its fall

the way—