Poetry

“You have to take your hat off in school,” scolded 3-year-old Lowell when Dad paused to play.

Old desks from Mother’s brief reign as one-room school teacher. I wanted the back seat, but it was taken by big brother Warren. I went for the front row. But sister Nadine, budding feminist, got there first. Nothing to do but mug for the camera.

It was 1957. The men in the butcher shop washed their hands for lunch but did not bother about blood on forearms.

Fifty years have made their claims: Lowell’s left hand lost in a meat grinder eight years later.
Nadine, curious journalist, gone at 36.
Our genial and gentle Father, gone at 66.
Warren, compassionate trucker, gone at 61.

We played school that one day. Afterward, the desks were buried in the basement to rust and mold.

From dust to dust, says Ecclesiastes.

I give thanks for the wisp of life in-between.

Thomas wrote this prose poem after his brother’s unexpected death on Aug. 4. The photo was taken at their home in Willow Street, Pa.
Click here for a PDF of the image and poem.