For the Grave of My Father

By Ursula McCabe

For the Grave of My Father

he asked for no service
only a scatter
of ashes
near a Rogue River fern
where on his April birthday
the furled fronds will reach up
find woodland light
their mossy cores thick with want

but it was mostly the hometown mallards
swimming in another state's lake
that waded through fragments
of his dusty burned self

none got to the Rogue River
till 25 years later
when I stopped
at his requested station

Siskiyou forest conifers
still laden with snow

even though a latecomer
to this wake
I am a fiddlehead unfolding --
restored to him.