Starlight
by Philip Levine

My father stands in the warm evening
on the porch of my first house.
I am four years old and growing tired.
I see his head among the stars,
the glow of his cigarette, redder
than the summer moon riding
low over the old neighborhood. We
are alone, and he asks me if I am happy.
"Are you happy?" I cannot answer
I do not really understand the word,
and the voice, my father's voice, is not
his voice, but somehow thick and choked,
a voice I have not heard before, but
heard often since. He bends and passes
a thumb beneath each of my eyes.
The cigarette is gone, but I can smell
the tiredness that hangs on his breath.
He has found nothing, and he smiles
and holds my head with both his hands.
Then he lifts me to his shoulder,
and now I too am there among the stars,
as tall as he. Are you happy? I say.
He nods in answer, Yes! oh yes! oh yes!
And in that new voice he says nothing,
holding my head tight against his head,
his eyes closed up against the starlight,
as though those tiny blinking eyes
of light might find a tall, gaunt child
holding his child against the promises
of autumn, until the boy slept
never to waken in that world again.




















I was sitting at the drive-thru window at the bank when my car-radio started playing Franz von Suppe's 'Poet and Peasant Overture.' Instantly, my eyes filled with tears. It took my brain several seconds to compute what was happening to me. That song was one of my deceased father's favourite classical pieces. He played it over and over again when i was growing up. Just hearing the opening strains brought tears to my eyes, confirming how much i still missed my dad - and how much I still loved him. Along with my tears, i felt a deep inner peace as I continued to listen to that song all the way home. It was as if my father was in the car with me assuring me of his love.

Tears and peace. Pain and love. We sometimes think they are not mutually exclusive. But more often than not, tears and pain are merely the flip side of peace and love.

sr. melanie svoboda