Fragments

I used to argue my points.
I responded to questions
with eager, innocent eyes,
and carefree, oblivious smiles.

Unknowing,
inexperienced,
and happily green—

I looked forward to the present.
Back then I knew my future more than I do now—
so sure of what my life’s trajectory would be.

My father was a teacher
at the University
and at home.

We were students from day one—my siblings and I.
He listened to us with patient, loving ears,
And was enthralled by our answers to his questions about

life
and fate
and people.

The pieces of his mind began to
crumble away
before any of us were ready—
we could never be ready.

He listened until the end.
It might have been out of habit;
maybe his brain was so packed with knowledge that there was no more space to absorb new information—akin to the way a sponge can only grasp

so
much
water.

I like to hope that somewhere deep behind his soft brown eyes, a part of him remembered. Maybe my father was all there, trapped inside his own body, teaching from afar?
Listening without the capacity to respond? Now that

he
is
gone,

and things are different,
I try to answer the questions—
I try to invent new interrogations that he might come up with today.
I am lost with a list of unclear answers

to
undetermined
wonders.