In the Bye and Bye
By John Herlihy

The old man sat in his rocking chair and gazed about,
Hardly seeing much at all, on his face a lingering pout.
The twilight sun descended burnt-eyed, like malediction;
The dusk-like moon rose sadly and full, like benediction.
The weary revenant returns as a pale ghost from the past,
As though coming home one final time and hoping it to last.

A book lay half opened, half read, resting there on his lap;
The sculptured beard adorned a sleepy head ready to nap.
Ah, the luxury of slipping into and out of the day’s reality,
One of the compensations afforded to the old age mentality.
Why do we hurry ourselves through the years ever in a rush,
While the snail goes about its business as though in a hush.

A visitor sat on the porch fence whittling shape into a stick,
Listening to the banter as a candle burned down on its wick.
Random sagebrush hustled along hurriedly by a restless wind;
Dust devils followed in their wake only to add to the chagrin.
Morning shadows shortened, then lengthened on the ground;
No doubt about it, like always, the day was now closing down.

“I’m fixin’ to die,” he finally said, “Got a cancer ‘neath the skin.”
He looked blankly at the visitor, then passed on a simple grin.
For one brief moment, he seemed a schoolboy making a joke;
The cloak of age returned and he was again just an old bloke.
The sagging flesh hung off his bones as if they would never stop;
The cottage dark against the fading sun, a depthless stage prop.

The visitor seemed familiar, but he couldn’t recall how or when;
Many an odd stranger came into his life and ended up a friend.
These were homespun people who lived and died on the land;
Years passed like sagebrush and nothing happened very grand.
“No use fussin’,” he said, “with the cat’s whiskers wet with milk.”
Then he stroked his white beard tenderly as though it were silk.

The visitor said nothing, just kept whittling on that stick;
You would think he was building up a barrier brick by brick.
Truth to tell, there was a comfortable reality between the two;
Even their silences spoke volumes; the words needed were few.
The old man couldn’t remember who he was, but now didn’t care;
The mood at twilight between friends a warm cloak ready to wear.

“If you see my son,” the old man said plainly now as an afterthought.
“Tell him I got myself a cancer, ain’t somethin’ I might have bought.”
Might not have bought indeed, but perhaps a gift of another kind;
As a fact not a fear, to put the old man into the right frame of mind.
The old man looked off to the horizon and now seemed to drift away;
A loon called out in the trees, as if to give the visitor a reason to stay.

The visitor stood up, time to take leave as the twilight allowed;
Good-bye Dad, he thought, but it would be useless to say aloud.
The old man didn’t remember who he was and now never would;
The son to the father a stranger who slipped in and out of the wood.
So long pardner, the visitor said softly, see you later in the by and by;
The vapors of dusk rose against the blue black plate of the night sky.