As a child of five, I yearned to bring my father a gift,

to cradle in my hand the precise beauty of a corkscrew.

Now, in spite of myself, I try to remember what he was like.

His face comes more easily to mind than I had hoped,

as does his sharp red suit and paisley tie, his brown shoes

and clucking laugh. I try to remember the other parts,

the significant bits, like his hands, like his heart.

I fall asleep on the bench trying to remember him.

The sky in my dream is filled with the granite sweetness

of mountain air. It is a short dream. I am aware of sheep

by the tracks, behind clumps of old vegetation.

There are too many stones and squat buildings. I wake

to people looking into my face like relatives into a crib.

I am not sure if I am awake or still dreaming. Perhaps

they are the same thing, merely a double consciousness

because a person must take walks inside himself.

He was like a garden, my father, half architecture, half habit.

I remember that much. I learned from him the rigour

of proper English and the pride of good manners.

He taught me to lace my shoes, and to spell as well.

But I learned to sing from my mother, because you

do not leave someone whom you taught how to sing.

I was born left-handed, but now I write with my right

—a part of me he took with him. I want to feel sad, but I don't.

I only wish I had memorised him when I was too young to know

that was the sort of thing you had to do before you turned six.