My Father's House

My Father's House · Jim Barnes Below my father's house are many meadows, and beyond the meadows the pawpaw trees line the river banks. I am alone here where my father's voice drifts, a small cloud, in a sky too bright, in a river far too clear. ii. What echoes there are are here below my father's house among the pawpaw trees, the shadowing leaves. I am alone here, stranger to words and worlds I'll never know; like the fruit of these trees I grow soft 14 · The Missouri Review 111. in summer wind, remembering the firm time, the sound of bells in the meadows, the lowing herds. The dream ongoing, the found past, the one shadow I always walk in, my father's house. Jim Barnes THE MISSOURI REVIEW · 15 ...