In Memory of Kevin Michael Davis, February 16, 1982 – July 23, 2010
Tag Archives: son
Rapids at Box Canyon Falls
a photograph by Kevin Michael Davis, 2/16/1982 – 7/23/2010
Outside of Ouray, Colorado. He would have been 40 years old today. We miss him.
Filed under Art, Photography
The Rhyming of Love
by Thomas Davis
Our fathers died, and then your mother left
And took a train ride to her resting place.
There are no words for senses left bereft
The moment living left our son’s good face.
Our love was glory when it first began to bloom.
We walked brown hills and felt the sky breathe light—
You took your hesitant, unlikely groom
And gave him more of life than was his right.
The days of work and turmoil, gladness, stress,
Have slowed us down and made us feel our years
As separateness has ground against the press
Of love through joyous days and bitter tears.
From gnarling roots of memories and time,
Love forges symphonies of changing rhyme.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Daughters and Sons
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I remember
when our daughters
became “a certain age”
and left us—
not just in a physical way,
but from our hearts as well.
I was sure this was what
raising children was about—
children leave you at a certain age,
never to return.
But they did return and
made that full circle
back to us, but
with “certain stipulations.”
Our son left,
came back,
then left again,
angry.
We thought he would
never return,
but he did again
at his death:
Came back full circle
to say, I need you both.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
The Rhyming of Love
a love poem to Ethel by Thomas Davis
Our fathers died, and then your mother left
And took a train ride to her resting place.
There are no words for senses left bereft
The moment living left our son’s kind face.
Our love was glory when it first began to bloom.
We walked brown hills and felt the sky breathe light—
You took your hesitant, unlikely groom
And gave him more of life than was his right.
The days of work and turmoil, gladness, stress,
Have slowed us down and made us feel our years
As separateness has ground against the press
Of love through joyous days and bitter tears.
From gnarling roots of memories and time,
Love forges symphonies of changing rhyme.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
The Leaving
a pastel and poem, in memoriam, by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The Poet’s Walk
The Mourning Cloaks 1
accompanied us
along our walk.
“They said,
“He loved and
not to be afraid.” 2
“That was the sum
of your being,
your purpose,
wasn’t it?
“Do you remember
when you told us,
‘Go take
the Poet’s Walk along
the Hudson River.
It’s a place I like
to go?”
So today we walk
The Poet’s Walk,
joined by the
Mourning Cloaks
to say our last goodbye.
Note: 1 Mourning Cloaks are butterflies.
2 This was Kevin’s last message, written after he could not speak. The full message was, “Kevin loves and not to be afraid.” Kevin passed away 2 years ago from today.
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
Kite Flying
a photo essay by Sonja Bingen
The winds of early spring sing windy songs
and young boy’s thoughts begin to long
for wings that lift his feet off ground to sky
and let his spirit start to fly.
He starts upon a hill, runs, lets legs stretch
as gentle winds begin to catch
the kite into its dance of buffeting
as paper, string, and tail go soaring
into a place where boys have always run
into the joy of springtime’s sun.
Filed under Art, Photography
Sonnet 42
by Thomas Davis
Back in New Mexico the monsoon rains
had turned the desert green. Massed sunflowers blazed
with purple bee balm in the fields, the stain
of colors so intense there was a praise
of living in the vibrancy exploding
across a landscape barren, dry, the earth
so sterile that the thought of burgeoning
into a garden seemed a cause for mirth.
We walked in beauty like the Navajo
and thought about our son and how his eyes
would never look again into the glow
of fields of flowers, see the flight of butterflies.
The moment that that thought occurred to me,
I stopped. How can this be reality?
Note: This was written just days after our son’s death in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Sonnet 38, Kevin Michael Davis, February 16, 1982 – July 23, 2010
by Thomas Davis
He died enveloped in his mother’s arms.
The two of them alone, she felt so tired
from lack of sleep, she thought about the charm
of closing eyes and drifting off, transpired
into a dream where waiting, dread, and love
were not commingled with each ragged breath
he took. But then his breathing changed. She shoved
herself out of her chair and smelled his death.
She put her arms around him as his eyes
flew open, glancing one last time at light,
and then his breathing stopped. The cloudy skies
leaked rain. Eyes stared without the gift of sight.
Her daughter said, she brought him to the earth,
her love the bridge between his death and birth.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Sonnet 36
by Thomas Davis
What does it mean deep down, beneath all feelings,
all thought, the regularity of breath,
to have a son? Blood from your blood, the singing
as steady as your heartbeat, the length and breadth
of who you are as father, husband, man,
the meaning borne from father, mother, son
passed through to son and daughters, all the hands
humanity has known on days with blazing suns.
We ought to celebrate and really know
each moment when our voices weave a song
as powerful as any oratorio
that makes the love we feel forever strong.
I think about my son, his spirit’s gentleness,
his signature of passionate intelligence.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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