Lessons from my Father

The long silence
of a hanging phone.
His head
the long shut down
silence of the industrial
building casting long
silent shadows
onto the patient earth
who will be there in sunlight
and darkness
long after his voice
is gone,
like it is now,
breathless
perhaps or out
of breath
from his steam
engine heart,
the coal being
shoveled fast, reaching
the abandoned bridge
 it will be a swift decent
which was the engine's
plan from the beginning.
Still. I want.
Him. Say.
Something.