Death of a father

For years now he'd been telling me
it never was too late to do the things
that must be done before the silver fish
lay frozen between lake and sky,
in blue ice midway between past and future,
his wintry sorrow and defrosting spring.

To ease my loneliness I planted snowdrops
on my father's grave. I gave him less:
not the confession that I heard him sing
in the last candle light I lit for him.
I knew the end and yet when it arrived
I pinched the flower heads, as if to send
my future back and throw away my spring.