COMING HOME

October 2002

Charles Harris Colp
1915 - 2002

My heart pulls me away. Yet
every brutally betraying fibre
of my body runs to you
and the path you break open
this dull slumber-filled afternoon.

Through the thick wild spruce
Sharp-needled creeping juniper
Summer swamps. Feet sinking
calf-deep. For so many years you
cleared the way. I step carefully
in your empty footprints.

Slack jaw
stumbling feet
the large body that has failed you.

I watch you leaving me
broken decayed.

Dismayed I close my eyes
and rub your grizzled cheek.

In an instant, you are there.

The rough winter-sweetened wool of your jacket
chafes like sandpaper against my young skin.

Perfume of 6 a.m. air crisp in my lungs.
Returning from the daybreak hunt

I hear my name.

Opening my eyes
find you walking
tall as the clouds
in the distance
far beyond the woods road.

In the first mist of morning
frost is breathing.

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Charles Harris Colp (1915 - 2002)
father
Betty Anne Colp
You are the daughter of Charles Harris Colp