Song to My Father

What is the sound of yesterday? you asked.

I did not know. Perhaps it was a ballad

sung to your mother. Music, passed from her

to you, then passed, unseen, from you to me.

We were the silences between the notes;

the rests which every melody requires.

We sang in different keys and out of time,

chromatic notes which made a harmony

for songs we never shared. Our requiem

to loss. The sound of yesterday, unheard.