Trumpet Dirge for Fathers

by Julene Tripp Weaver

1.

There are so many of them—

like the sperm they produce

Yet, never enough

in our lives.

Where art thou, oh father of mine?

All fine fathers of sound 

trumpeting—multitudes sailed

off to sea, lost in the wild winds

of a mother ocean—that mighty

womb they could not control.

The dead fathers lost to us

worthy of high grief—

the under-songs we sing

longing for the half

we cannot know.

Sperm penetrates the egg. 

But, the aggressor might well be 

the womb, lying-in-wait like a

carnivorous plant

its sticky sweet cologne.

2.

The peacock with his

turquoise speckled plume

rising iridescent—

such beauty his legacy

of survival.

Male outsiders walk alone

adorn the grounds—

entice the eye.

Such novelty wears off

when his excrement

litters the pool.

And he disturbs your quiet time 

with piercing squawks 

calling for a mate.

3.

Fathers stand outsiders—

removed from the goddess clan

they steal women

from their family home, 

to make their own.

When our ally, mother ocean, 

steals:

a father,

a lover,

a son,

we mourn such loss 

as we long 

for them to mourn for us.

* * * * *

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist in Seattle; she worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. She has three poetry books, Truth Be Bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS (Finishing Line Press, 2017), No Father Can Save Her (Plain View Press, 2011), and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her poems can be found online at: Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now; a creative nonfiction piece is published by Yellow Chair Press, In The Words of Women International 2016 Anthology. Find more of her writing at www.julenetrippweaver.com.