Poem September 2, 1972 Issue

THE ROAD HOME

Godfrey John

You sit alone in the summer night
with the engine running, thinking Why—
Why did all this happen? Why
doesn't the old man understand?
Suddenly the velvet dark
is probed by distant headlights, now
the night is naked about you. Hide
your eyes from the glare. You lift your hand.
"Is everything OK, sir?"
The Mountie towers at your side.
(What was happening moments before
your silence was broken? And back home
when you walked out, slamming the door,
drove to Muskoka and pulled up here?)
"Is everything OK, sir?"
(Sounds as if he really cared.)
Out of the dark a wild duck calls
and nervously you scratch your beard.
"Sure, officer. Trying to be alone!"
The words hang strangely on the air.
You look ahead. Without a word
the Mountie's gone and dark floods back.
Funny—no other questions, orders ...
Just like he understood, just like
he really cared, that cop. No hate.
No argument. And no one "wrong."
You want to thank him. Is that odd?
Too late. He's gone. Inside you feel
good ... ... ... ...

But now you think of Dad
standing alone there back at home,
your last words shaking in his face.
Not what you meant to say at all.
Not what he meant to happen. Why ...?
So much was said.
And if you were "right," why do you feel
like this?—"Maybe both of us
were wrong. But what's he feeling now?"

All at once it's not the same:
You're thinking It's not who is right
but what is true that matters. Not
who is right but what is real.
Is this what life is all about?
Somehow you find in all this black
the love that he kept deep in him,
the love in you that you forgot.
Oh, what a mess!—But wait, but wait!
For what you didn't say to him
before you left, yes, all you didn't
do you see so clearly now—
and what is more, it's not too late.

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