Behind A Stone Wall by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes
Behind A Stone Wall
by Rethabile Masilo
Behind a stone wall
stands the rest of my father, carrying
a book with pages we will never turn.
We had buried him in a casket
lined with newspapers to keep his face
annoyed, because freedom is immortal,
he thought. He holds the book
like a slab of concrete
we should build the rest of our lives on,
like someone saying, while lifting the marble
off a tomb:
here's what's to be dealt with.
He looks like himself battling a plough
into submission. At the sound of his voice
our dog whimpers, and I hear it
scrape the bottom of a lower door at back
which father used when he came home late.
When I awake, I will myself back to sleep.
He hobbles to me and places the book
in my small hands, then turns around
and disappears without another look.
stands the rest of my father, carrying
a book with pages we will never turn.
We had buried him in a casket
lined with newspapers to keep his face
annoyed, because freedom is immortal,
he thought. He holds the book
like a slab of concrete
we should build the rest of our lives on,
like someone saying, while lifting the marble
off a tomb:
here's what's to be dealt with.
He looks like himself battling a plough
into submission. At the sound of his voice
our dog whimpers, and I hear it
scrape the bottom of a lower door at back
which father used when he came home late.
When I awake, I will myself back to sleep.
He hobbles to me and places the book
in my small hands, then turns around
and disappears without another look.
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