I won’t get to see you at the end of the long drive,
field a scratchy phone call as I drop in and out of service 
coming over the mountains- what is my eta? Have I eaten?
The door will be unlocked, you won’t wait up…but you always did.

The mountains stretched out and overlapped the sky
like an image from an Eric Carle book; 
I cried a little for him, and then for Daddy as a song from his service queued up, and finally I cried  for you, I have been stuffing it down these past weeks. I am tapping this out on my cell phone after driving 9 hours, and no pound cake to greet me, just an easy chair at your son’s house and the uneasy distance.

I will head to your place in the morning, now just a house to be packed up.