He watches, misty-eyed

as his father

shuffles across the room.

Though his body rejects

his mind’s efforts

to move, to speak, to touch,

he remains present

in soul, spirit.

How cruel, that mental cage.

Over the past eight years,

I have observed 

my Dad while he grapples

with the reality

that his father’s

path is long-suffering.

“This visit may be our

last,” he told me

on the Gulf shore last week.

“They plan to sell the home

by December.”

A gem in my childhood.

A beauty of St. Pete.

Sanctuary,

I called it in my youth.

Through grief, through hurricanes,

it stands upright.

Though its foundation may change,

the memories it holds,

the warmth it gives,

will never be shaken,

will never be taken,

nor forgotten

from the hearts he has touched.