the fossil record
#43
PIONEER CHAPEL
Sellwood, Oregon
"Who will give this woman
in marriage to this man?"
Snow chooses not to fall while the question
floats from the minister's lips across the gap
of altar rail and stairs. December mimics April.
Bursts of sunlight play hide-and-go-seek
across the stained glass. A wedding guest coughs
as if to cue my single line. On my arm one hand
as light as a petal in the roses that she holds
in the other.
We have walked in step, in time,
together down the aisle of this pioneers' chapel
like those shy, hardy girls and their sober
whiskered fathers. My own beard is gray,
and the last time I walked from an altar
I greedily took with me another man's daughter.
Those hardy farmers and daughters long dead
must have heard the same floor boards creak
counterpoint to the organ as they neared the altar
and banked flowers.
We have walked before
of an evening, her small light hand in mine
out into the neighborhood to view the gardens,
she a favorite of the old folk who indulged her
with lilacs and daffodils and tulips and irises,
a little girl gathering rosebuds while she may.
But today's flowers are not for my house
nor the young woman at my side who waits
for me to play my part and speak my line
as a proper father should, but I cannot muster
an actor's skill on these old boards, play the role
as the dated stage directions demand.
How
Can I give what I do not own? Have never owned.
A few miles and twenty-six years ago I waited
while she was born and fisherman pulled Chinook
from the nearby Willamette, a mighty spring run,
men fishing in the dark pulling out of the night
and the dark river the flashing salmon. And you
too, my daughter, slipped wet and shiny
into our time, your mother's creation, truth be told,
and I but a man blessed only in witness, an audience
of one, or a small part at best without lines.
Again,
in a mock April by the same river I stand
still in a small role but with one short line,
a man without property here who blesses again
with witness as you release yourself from my arm
to glide the short distance between father
and husband leaving me in the wake of white gown.
Yourself and your world you alone own.
To this I answer,
"I will."
Lou Masson