a tilting of air

My mother received her heavenly crown in March 2020. This year, Dad was moved to a care facility and recently to hospice. Their house sold last week. They purchased several years ago after Dad retired from decades of serving in the ministry. It was the first house they owned. I reflected recently on my lack of emotional reaction to the house selling. It felt strange not to be sad. Yet, the more I reflected, the more it made sense. We were in a different season. It was their house…a place for just the two of them to call their own. The places I lived in (so many) as a child…places of deep memory…are long lived in by others. We lived in and loved each other from two different seasons. Time marches on, as do we.

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There was no childhood in that house for me.
Your spring of independence bloomed in winter,
When homey and holy drifts thawed into scattered
Rivulets and uncertain streams — away from you.

For me, strangers now fill the houses that held
My younger heart, carried above the sweeping carols,
Vaulted high — so high — by thunderous chords,
To light the precarious landscape of the trusted upright.

That season’s [uncertain] clouds have turned watercolored,
Wispy, feathered brush strokes to mark remembrance.
Morning footsteps and kitchen clatter are muffled
Drumbeats from your march to an endless summer.