Atropos

by Ellen M. Taylor

     All are architects of Fate
     Working in these walls of Time;
     Some with massive deeds and great,
     Some with ornaments of rhyme.
          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Builders”

“During the war,” my father would say of his days
in the Philippines, “we would hang our used teabags
on a clothesline and get three days from one bag;
During the war, we would share one needle to darn
our socks, Fred Finnegan and I, one spool of thread.
During the war, we were always damp and afraid
we wouldn’t come home.

“When the war was over, we built a fire at camp,
lit the spool tables and the rickety chairs, lit
the pallets where we pitched our tents, lit the molding
cots where we slept, lit our rotting socks, threadbare shirts.
We burned anything we could find, to leave nothing
behind. And when we were stateside, our officers
told us, ‘Forget everything you’ve seen, men.
Get on with your lives.’”

My father returned home to Jamaica Plain, married
his summer girl, built his life with seven children.
Fred Finnegan went home to South Boston, married,
and one winter night when his house caught on fire
he burned with it, crawling down the hall to threads
of smoke curling under the door where his daughter lay
asleep in her crib.

“All are architects of Fate,” Longfellow wrote,
after his lengthy courtship led to married
bliss, six children rich. A decade later
while he retired for a nap nearby, the threads
of his beloved wife’s dress flared, and flamed into fire.