Matthew George Ryan, February 4, 1924 – August 27, 2010

 

(Isabel and Matt)

 

…When they come out, she is facing him,
walking backwards in front of him
and holding his hands, pulling him,
when he stops, reminding him to step
when he forgets and starts to pitch forward.
She is leading her old father into the future
as far as they can go, and she is walking
him back into her childhood, where she stood
in bare feet on the toes of his shoes
and they foxtrotted on this same rug.
I watch them closely; she could be teaching him
the last steps that one day she may teach me.
At this moment, he glints and shines,
as if it will be only a small dislocation
for him to pass from this paradise into the next.

-Excerpted from “Parkinson’s Disease,” by Galway Kinnell (b. 1927)