Donal Bereaved

A Work in Progress 
8

So memory swings on the hinge of time

turns Fridays to Saturdays to Sundays

adds one more day to what was always known

making all of time one day older

and Friday the 1st becomes Saturday the 2nd 

and Donal looked up 1954

and saw it was somewhat as he remembered

a New Year’s party that Friday night

turning into a Saturday when his parents didn’t come home 

and then first light on Sunday the 3rd his mother came home a widow 

& 

after that 

his father no longer existed

except as a photograph

where he was by his motorbike 

with the sidecar

Donal could imagine

another ending

that night his father left for the party

and never came home

that he traveled away

like Odysseus

and

might yet still return

Donal went in search of missing words

casting imagery onto Achilles’ shield

summoning a storm to greet Aeneas

invoking Pound’s Cantos

Dido he knew Carthage personified

Hawaii where Merwin sailed

Venice for Pound

Donal felt the call of his peers

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2025