The Ambassador

i had begun to wonder

what it would be like

to enter his world rekindle

a connection with a place

i had abandoned long ago

and so accepted with

little thought or hesitation

when he invited me to stay

a few days at his home

when the first full summer moon

hung below the milky way and

the countless other galaxies spiraled

outward to a theoretical infinity

with their distant awareness of

and keen indifference to

human endeavors and

the course of earthly matters

the old ambassador

to a country i can't recall

where i was born the only son

to an absent sire his artifice of stone

now hugging the rocky coast

at the fabled outskirts

of an historic coastal town

stretching as a paradise for tourists

between the worn appalachians

and the thrusting atlantic

an aging house

under overgrown walnut trees

whose fragrant fruit

over the many years

had taken their toll

on the gabled roof

on the mossy walks

and the deck paint

stuck to the porches

marking one man's palace

with stains from their dark juice

with the bitter-sweet scent

of aging fruit

an exterior facade

of local quarried stone

inside impenetrable rooms

arranged with antiques and oddities

with oils and watercolor paintings

capturing in rows the fading portraits

of diplomats and kings

and long-dead saints

frozen in their oversight

of bronze and marble carvings

and primitive curving shapes

in teak and other exotic forest woods

a suit of preserved knight's armor

adjacent to the study door

the walls of the library lined

with leather and cloth bound

first editions of storied fiction

with torn parchment bearing

broken handwritten treaties

with hardcover tomes

of alchemy and science

and all manner of learning

set in typeface with fading ink

on yellow disintegrating pages

each book each work

of art each antiquity

and artifact and remnant

of buried cultures arranged

to mirror his peculiar habits

as if his wits and demeanor

were hung about the edifice

his silence like a ghost

floating in rays of

slanted light and dust through

the wood paneled halls

as if the exotic inlaid

sword propped above

the long and polished mantle

and tucked in its scabbard

was ready to be drawn in

response to any challenge

uttered in the disarming

incandescence

a hint of a past dalliance

amplifications and distortions

of the accomplishments

the boasts and imperfections

the lies and exaggerations

the bravado and proclivities

of the man i thought of

as the ambassador

from a failing empire

but never as my father

a single shelter

encapsulating

his settled life

next to a restless sea

and his house

in turn embodying  

the wars the hate

the wonton destruction

the brutal exploitation

and discrimination

through the millennia

of his tribe and nation

as if from the vantage

point of this abode the world

his ego either confiscated

or manufactured

was the only universe

one could possibly imagine

until the sale and

auction where the stuff

the why of which

nobody remembers

is sold to wealthy

foreigners and strangers

                  *

each morning of my visit

he would attend to

the first part of his

twice daily ritual

flipping the hourglass

on the round

mahogany table

by the main

port of entry

a time piece in the form

of an elegant and delicate

wood-carved venus

embracing two orbs

of handblown glass

such that with a single motion

of his dry arthritic hands

he'd reverse the fine white sands

so they were sifting

from the globe adjacent

to the goddess' head

into the globe near her bottom

a perfect instrument for

a forgotten lord to measure

the passage of what's living

and the distance

from what's dead

a carving of a woman

worn from centuries

of human touching

from the mar of packaging

and shipping crates constructed

from each collector's purchase

but otherwise a flawless

aphrodite cut and polished

from the wood of a tree

he later told me

no longer grows

on the planet

                  *

in the afternoons

i was sole witness

to his feeble puttering

through the endless

curves and stretches

of his gardens pulling

random weeds staking

one or two tall flowers

trimming bushes

here and there

cutting ornamental grasses

and then his resumption

of the digging of a shallow

drainage trench

in the eastern shadows

ending the daily chore

clay stained and exhausted

with his pickax and rounded shovel

the objective unaccomplished

making me wonder if

the work would ever be over

rain in the forecast

his complaints of how

when clouds open up

water pools next to

the old rock foundation

seeps through in puddles

on the tiled floors

warping the wood molding

wetting the oriental rugs

when he went back

inside the manse

to clean up and shower

i stood there staring into the ditch

tossing a few random rocks

in the hole he'd dug knowing

this priest of accumulation

would likely never notice

                  *

after dinner on

the final evening

we sat with our wine

in one of the parlors

where he offered

me three unsolicited lessons

he claimed to have assimilated

from the course of ageing

and that until

this grievous recounting

i had mostly ignored or forgotten

citing various atrocities

he admonished me

how i did not need

to understand the world

to transform it or destroy it

that i would have to know

myself inside out to

create a lasting kingdom

and then muttered

almost as a wish

that though he'd never done it

he knew that the unfettered

beholding of another person

was the key to transformation

                  *

the hour being late

he retreated to  

the marble entry

and the ritual of flipping

the hourglass so that

the sands flowed back

from the lower feminine half

into the empty globe

abutting the goddess' head

like precious unfelt feelings

passing through a narrow heart

then retired off to bed

                  *

and when i left

early the next day

he didn't bend to give

a kiss or stretch

his arms to hug

just shook my hand and

said how the doctor

told him as the

dramatic crux

to the last office visit

that he had less

than six months

left to live

explaining how he had

rewritten his will

arranged his affairs

so that his world

and all his worldly

possessions would

be left to me

then closed the door

with me standing there alone

in the gray haze of morning

unable to feel anything except

the guilt at what one day

i would bequeath to others 

and incapable of believing

a fucking word he'd said