Reflections on Family History, Painting Technique, Genetics, and Cancer

Tapping the ash from his pipe with the palm of his hand he leads

His gait is as proud and unmistakable as I have always known it

But the bags beneath his eyes are a deep evening red

Where the capillaries can no longer hold back what life remains

Above them, gray-green eyes; like mine, like my father’s, like his brothers’

That have not changed despite all the changes they have seen

Insomuch as in ourselves as in everything else, reflected out and taken in

The paintings line the walls, works in progress, works completed

We stop walking and form an obtuse angle to observe just one

Of the homestead by the fjord where a young girl met a boy

With gray-green eyes; like mine, like my father’s, like his brothers’

And they decided they would leave what life remains for the hope of another

He’s pointing and explaining and I stagger at how necessary this is

His hand is worn and calloused; like mine, like my father’s, like his brothers’

And I feel the importance, it is in this exchange that life remains

Looking at him I see so much of myself and of that at an end

And looking at me he sees himself and of that at a beginning

With eyes that have not changed despite all the changes they have seen

Gray-green; like mine, like my father’s, like his brothers’

Insomuch as in ourselves as in everything else what life remains

 

In loving memory of Harlan M. Estrem– My Grandfather