Father, My Golem, a Poem by Robert Gable Potts

He never understood
the obsession
words jotted down in a journal
can foment; the attraction
of matter that only a moment
before was property of mind.

Never knew
the clarity that takes hold,
when the one true word
is found.

His body lies below me,
sealed in poplar. I pretend
earth is transparent
to the dead,
that father watches stars
take their seats as night falls

and is not alone. The words
I wrote down and deposited under a stone
on his grave, bleed
through the torn-out page and sink.
The ink slides around
capillaries of pebble and loam, passes
through wood and bone.

My scroll
slips under a silent tongue;
commandments

to guide my father, the wanderer
through a void
without meaning.

Copyright 2007, Robert Gable Potts. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.

Robert Gable Potts graduated in June 2005 from California State University, San Bernardino with a B.A. in English, and is a member of honor societies Sigma Tau Delta and Golden Key International. Potts is currently enrolled in the M.F.A. creative writing program at UCR Palm Desert. Two of his poems, "Blue" and "Sweet," were published in Solstice, College of the Desert's debut literary journal.