Roads

memories about my father and his funeral

when father was dead

in his large enough coffin

a light blue ribbon tied his temples

otherwise he seemed asleep

the sky was clear but I did not look upwards

I searched in his black wallet

found an icon a few notes and figures

about building a road

 

father was a man of numbers and calculated windings

usually I refused to play chess with him

he said that it was his dream

I was locking myself in my room without keys

he was setting the chess table

always giving me the white pieces and many advantages

teaching me that corner towers can attack altogether

and that a good defense means to push forward

I was not listening everything was in vain

dice were funnier somehow

they seemed to roll easily beside my will

 

those days I believed that life was very serious

a kind of order where chess was a surfeit

boring tiresome futile effort for leisure time

I just liked that sound of pieces popping each other

when I gathered them at the end of the game

white bishops had a black head

black bishops had a white point

 

it was a hot day

words melting in silence

my eyes wide opened looking through a lens

so cloudy so clear

father smiling in his coffin

his front clasped by a blue ribbon

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

I share this in the memory of my father who died quite young on a hot July day, when he was 63 years old, now he would have been 70. My life was emptier and more miserable after his death. May he rest in peace. He was a road engineer, he liked to play chess, I still have his small black wallet and his pocket chess table.