Where the Wind Blows only West

The Poem

In preparation for my funeral,
my brother sits me in the creaking porch chair.
He combs my sandy brown hair in long waves
pointing to the shore.

My brother hugs his shoulders and taps his hairy feet.
If I were there, my brother would ask me,
Is there a peace in my stillness?

But, he must forgive me—
I am as my father became:
we are linens woven in reminiscence—
faded blue overalls and my grandfather’s gray hat from the 20’s
made to dress a memory.
I survive the same as the nuance of birdsong—
I’m reborn from craving;
a shrill noise heard as a melody,
the wind as a whisper,
an aroma that brings us home.

I have no voice for my brother—
I cannot nurse his heartache;
so please, for me
pretend that you are my brother;
Forget your name.
I want you to remember our lives together.
I want to dream of your comfort,
as your hands pray for mine.

Think about when
we approached our father’s jaw.
We were two young mudskippers
enlisted against “the beard”—
Armed with clipper and razor
we cut pathways in the hedge
and trimmed his cheek
to look like tiger stripes.

Or when we thumb-wrestled to decide
which one of us would ride around the block
in his new two-seater convertible.

Or when we made hand-shadows by the campfire
of alligators and cranes
and our father beamed and told stories to match.

Our hands were so small back then
and our father’s happy lips sublime.
I could not imagine
how we could ever distinguish his ashes from the soil
as you must now do with mine
in the field by the shore
where the wind blows only west.

Commentary

I don't have a lot to say about this poem other than my dad isn't dead yet, thankfully, and neither am I (although, I suppose inevitabilities are what they are). This poem also went through a lot of revision, and I am deeply indebted to the people who gave me such good feedback.

That said, there is a funny story about this. I did win a small writer's festival in Roanoke, Texas some years back by submitting this. It took place in a library, if that gives you any sense of how small it was—but a win is a win, and I'm still not sure that I believe it happened.

At any rate, I was talking about writing and poetry with a mother, her husband, and her older-teenage daughter at a table during the dinner when the festival was starting. The mother told me she wrote poetry, and I told her I did, too. I read one of hers, and it was okay—so I politely said something about it being nice or whatever.

Around that time, the speaker at the podium said, "We're going to announce the winner for the adult poetry division: it's Forrest for 'Where the Wind Blows Only West'!" I walked up, was kind of confused about the whole thing, and sat back down.

The mother said, "Oh, wow, that's great! Congratulations. I'd love to read your poem!"

I replied, "For sure! Here, let me pull it up."

After scrolling through Google Drive a bit and navigating through my folders, I pulled up the poem, and said, "Here you go. I'm going to go get some more food, I'll be right back."

Little did I realize, I had made a mistake—I gave her my phone. If you are the sort of person that occasionally sends or receives a particular variety of pics, I'm sure you see where this is going.

So I get back to the table, and the woman says, "Someone named Violet* sent you a picture of her butt."

I don't think my face made expressions because I didn't know what to do. But internally, I was like...

😧 → 😨 → 😱 → 😬 → RIP 🪦

Wellp, I guess I'm not going to see them ever again oh god the shame is so much why did this happen ahhhhhhh

Anyway, lesson learned: don't enable photo previews in push notifications (or really notifications of any kind!) if you send/receive lewds.

* I changed the name to protect the innocent.

ps: for what it's worth, it was a nice photo, 10/10.