GAYLA M. MILLS
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A Father's Spring
Prairie Wolf Press 
by gayla m. mills

​Outside, April waits for me. The sky has changed from slate to cornflower. The smell of pollen and fresh mulch thickens the air with subtle scents, like a fruity wine or a baby’s newly minted skin. I try to wake from my mental slumber to notice it all. I await the growth of my just-planted garden.
  
Meanwhile, my father fades away with his windows open to the air. He nibbles and stumbles, smiling but confused. I think of winter as the time of death, when  everyone who’s left me has chosen to go. But my father defies the rules, as  always. He’ll be planted in spring, with ashes nourishing the new baby ferns.  Each year, we’ll visit his grave while above us birds call to their new mates.  We’ll return home and eat fresh strawberries, and think of how much he enjoyed  them for breakfast.

​
(Spring 2012)

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  • Home
  • Book
    • Purchase
  • Essays & Features
    • On Music >
      • All Steamed Up
      • Music Under a Tennessee Moon
      • A Future Imagined
      • Nashville Lights
      • Finding the Right Key
      • Practice
      • 12 Reasons Live Music
    • On Family >
      • Opening a Closed Book
      • Powers of Two
      • A Father's Spring
      • The Last Day >
        • Spry Interview
    • On Home >
      • Brick by Brick
      • Best not to Know
      • The Bouquet
    • On Mortality >
      • Dead Bodies
      • Being Whole
      • Shaken Ground
      • Soft Spot
    • On Living Fully >
      • Everything's in Color
      • Becoming Human
      • The Immortal Years
      • The Cost of Jury Duty
      • Broken Bones
  • Fiction
    • Enraptured
    • Buried Treasure
    • Soaring
    • Evening
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