My father in the night shuffling from room to room <br />on an obscure mission through the hallway. <br /> <br />Help me, spirits, to penetrate his dream <br />and ease his restless passage. <br /> <br />Lay back the darkness for a salesman <br />who could charm everything but the shadows, <br /> <br />an immigrant who stands on the threshold <br />of a vast night <br /> <br />without his walker or his cane <br />and cannot remember what he meant to say, <br /> <br />though his right arm is raised, as if in prophecy, <br />while his left shakes uselessly in warning. <br /> <br />My father in the night shuffling from room to room <br />is no longer a father or a husband or a son, <br /> <br />but a boy standing on the edge of a forest <br />listening to the distant cry of wolves, <br /> <br />to wild dogs, <br />to primitive wingbeats shuddering in the treetops.<br /><br />Edward Hirsch<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lay-back-the-darkness/
