This poem also appears in the May 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 91, No. 5, page 49). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Revenant
I dreamt of my father the night he died.
Then for a few years, he’d be there in my sleep.
Not directly, but at my side, or sitting nearby
The way the closest people always do.
You didn’t have to see him. You didn’t need to hear him.
He didn’t have to speak. He might just be helping out
Watching the kids or having a discussion with my mom
While they sat together for a meal, all in the background
Like a movie playing in the room next but one.
Gradually his presence in my dreams tailed off.
Years went by. I’d see him only in films and photos
Glad my children could have access
To his concrete voice, his humor and surroundings
Which remained theirs and ours. But somehow too removed.
Now just recently his closeness has returned
Unannounced. Again, he occupies a corner of a dream
Watching the news or fixing the sink. He’s part of the crowd
And I realize this is the way he always liked to be.
It’s not a bad way to think of heaven—if there is one.
Taking up where we left off all routines,
Of which we never tire, and becoming the way we grasp
infinity.
