He came, he went, left me none the wiser.
More or less, it seems, this was his intent.
I am, through him, left the improviser.
It’s mine: mine to wonder, mine to invent,
mine to discover; with free-will to dream.
I am, myself, an independent cell.
And so it was. He left me here to redeem
from his departure – that gift – a morsel
of truth so simple, so perfect, so brief;
and yet so difficult to comprehend.
I am free to doubt and state disbelief:
to question his way to my journey’s end.
. This then is the gift of my father’s breath,
. I need no longer fear the time of death.

© Tim Grace, 8 April 2012

To the reader: The perfect gift is free-will. What a clever deception. It’s like a kite; useless without string. Hand a child a beautiful kite and after days of frustration he or she will soon ask for the attachment. Upon receiving the greatest gift of all we are burdened with responsibility; we are chained to free-will’s insatiable curiosity; indebted to its reciprocal loop of expectation. The moral burden of free-will is unforgiving; ultimately, I must account for my transgressions … for the choice was mine.

To the poet: A bundle of tangled thoughts about parenting and the delegation of authority through moral expectation. Religious overtones abound… capitalise the ‘H’ in ‘he’ and you have a sermon; without, it’s a son’s contemplation of his father’s developmental influences: distantly demanding, vaguely judgemental and omnipotently present… your choice; but have you thought about the consequences and can you afford the cost? They are yours alone to bear.

Free Will
Picture Source:
http://youtu.be/jOXyvo2ID_o