My Father’s Breathing

photo by D. Murk

Bees the color of sunset 
sing in the aspen groves,
yellow fingers snapping 
in the aspen groves. I listen
for these more natural sounds.  
Behind me on the path,
the natural sound 
of my father’s breathing 
breaks like an old song 
sung again by an old singer, 
a song we remember 
but in a different tenor. 
Or perhaps dying has just
the one tone and every day 
we merely wrap our ear
in a new horn. His breath 
is shallow in my ears.
At the meadow, he sinks 
into a field of Russian sage.
He actually reclines, 
like a child, in the purple 
stems, and is inflated 
by the kitchen smell, 
a finch’s shuffle, field of bees 
the color of a setting sun.