Under what conditions do you dream of the dead?

from the title of a poem by Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing has changed.
One day follows another,
a line of ants, each carrying
a grain of sugar from the bowl.

My father is still dead.
I’ve seldom thought of him
these last five years, and then, usually
with an arrogant kind of pity.

Nothing has changed.
Wind blows through bamboo,
or not. Sun heats my uncovered
head, or not.

Yet lately I’ve been seeing my father
silent in the hallway when I pass,
sitting with the Reader’s Digest
at the table. Outside, he watches
the carpenters raise walls, his skill.

Always he’s young, less than half
my age, early twenties, filled
with anticipation of what life may bring.

And always he wears a white shirt,
not crisply starched like my mother
used to craft, but softer, a bit
discoloured and frayed, as if
he’s been wearing it a long time.

When he was dying he asked me: is this
all there is? You’re born, you live, you die?

But these days when I see him, even
though nothing has changed, he seems
content. Happy just to hang around.
I have no desire to launder his shirt.