Good Friday, looking west

There's a good view of the Minneapolis skyline from my mother's new senior apartment in St. Paul.  Looking westward, a vast pink sunset over the skyscrapers, where my father John Gould used to flourish.  Looking east, a full moon.  Strange times here; taking care of my father in hospice during the day; by night, reading an odd, semi-convincing book about Edward de Vere ("Shakespeare" by another name, by Mark Anderson) - of the Oxford School of Bardolatry.  Turns out the Earl was born on my father's birthday, April 12th - which he is now inching toward, & might possibly reach.  The fatherly aspect of the author of The-Artist-formerly-known-as-Shakespeare's (Prince?  Hamlet?) Sonnets had a decisive impact on my own obscure biography, just as the rebellious/dutiful decision to become a "poet" seems to epitomize our see-saw, tentative balancing act with my own father.  I am now keeping vigil, I am attending & caring for him, from whom for a long time it seems I found ways to keep my distance.  Yet I am so happy to be here with him now, my great kind meek wise father.

I finished the long poem Stubborn Grew on a Good Friday in 1998.  You can read the grand finale (along with the rest) at this link - it's pretty good, I daresay.  Toward the end, the voice my father suddenly breaks in, to talk to me.  It's pretty good.  It's all tangled up in roses & Henrys & Shakespearean mysteries, too, which you can read about further here... "how stub born grew the / rose."