Anne Kellas #7 My father’s soul had passed me by, responding to Cui Yuwei's poem #13

Written in response to reading Cui Yuwei #13 - Time Is a Bird-responding to Elif Sezen's "Wombtales"

A rush of air –   
and I knew at once
that he had fled –
that I was an orphan,
that he was free.

Dear Conversation readers, In the context of reading the recent, strong poems about birth here, I don't know why a poem about a death should come to me. Perhaps, in the face of their very strength and power, I had felt frozen, and could not carry on the “conversation”; perhaps I felt that more need not be said.  

Then, something in Cui Yuwei's poem-response to those poems broke through and freed me, and out came a draft of this poem. 

Revisiting my draft tonight, I thought well, it carries on the conversation? My father's death was a kind of birth, for him. I hope to use the poem in a series I am writing, For my father who art in heaven. 

The title I have given my poem is very much a provisional title, just added tonight. Thanks for reading! By the way I am very grateful to Kit for organising this conversation space, it has made me write poems I think I might not have uncovered without this blog.