My Fathers House

A little snow fell last night. The kind you can confuse with ashes from a fire. I lit a fire from scrap wood and my throat burned from stain and paint residue. My parents never had real firewood. There were so many other things to burn. My room warmed up from torn up deck planks and broken chair legs. This is where my father died. One morning after coffee he set out on a slow run along the cross country ski trail that loops near their house. He never came back. A clot caught in his heart. In the morning I follow the trail. The soil is almost black and rippled with slick roots like veins. It rains and rains. The mosses thrive and fungi burst though fallen trees as they decompose. They turn to loam leaving behind  hollow exoskeletons of bark. My father would have sprouted fungi and mixed with the season's dead leaves. By spring he'd have been ripe for new seedlings. I pass the place where he fell and stopped breathing. We built a cairn. The stones are settled down now and mossy. It is easy to cry when the ground is already saturated. There is a comfort in the feel of tears. The just leaving body warmth and a tang like wine. When my father died, I moved into the space he left inside me and found out it was where I belonged.