Wind Phone

I had heard tales of a wind phone
Somewhere in Japan
Talk to your dead loved
They said…
I bought a plane ticket
I flew on the wind
I found the wind phone
It was somewhere in Japan
I waited in the queue
My turn finally came
I approached the booth with trepidation
It was white
That is to say the booth was dreadful white
And there was a small neatly organized table
Organized in precision
Upon it was the phone
Black and dull
What was once shiny glossy
Passed through thousands upon thousands of hands
Hand to ear
Mouth to word
Word to air
Not ears…
Wind phone!
Talk to your dead loved
They said…
Only, I chose differently
I didn’t talk to my Father
Dead these eight years
I didn’t talk to my Mother
Dead these twelve years
I didn’t even speak to the baby we lost between my first son and my first daughter
No, I spoke to no dead loved
But, I put my words into the wind phone
Hoping the wind would find the ears of my second son, Paul
He is minimally verbal
But, luckily for us, more verbal than most
I try to persuade the wind with my silver tongue
Persuade it to unlock the mystery of my second son
Who often releases words on the wind,
Hoping those words unlock some type of understanding between us
As I look out over a Japanese valley
The wind carries my words away
Not to be heard,
Nor understood
The wind phone holds me silent
As I wait for a connection
Whether my second son was there
Or ten thousand miles away,
Our words are carried over the wind
And, pass us by.
Blowing fierce into the stratosphere
Carrying our DNA back to the stars that we came from
Out to somewhere where our dead loved
Are rejoined in a Big Bang connection
As I hung up the phone
I looked backward at the queue,
And felt shame for my wind blasphemy
I had to try
Before I myself become dead loved
I hope they can forgive me—
I hope Paul can forgive me—
Maybe sometimes not being able to talk to your dead loved
Is not as bad as not being able to talk to your alive loved

Click here to read Christopher P. Hickey on the origin of the poem.

Image: photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.

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Christopher P. Hickey

Christopher P. Hickey lives in Malden, MA, with his wife, Lissette, and their four children: Atticus, Lenore, Paul, and Joaquin. He graduated with an MFA in Literature and Creative Writing from the Harvard School of Extension Studies in 2020. He is the group facilitator of The Malden Writers’ Collaborative. He publishes prose and poetry on his blog: procrassthenation.com, and will co-host a poetry Open-Mic North of Boston called Contro-Verse starting in January of 2024.

Latest posts by Christopher P. Hickey (see all)

• Wind Phone - May 21, 2024