Searching (for my daughter)

I put away the hopes I'd had        
for your childhood like unused toys        
left these last ten years in the rain        
left these last ten years        
without you        
and move forward lighter colder        
simpler.        
       
Simple as a cream-colored stone        
smoothed in a glacial stream        
the smell of river washed wood        
in the sun,        
taste of sand.        
       
Last leaves blow        
by half-light        
by October moon        
rattle in dead-end corners        
in cities        
fly against wet stumps        
in lonely woods.        
       
And from the habit of searching,        
freed to wandering, as our home is gone        
regret does not fade entirely,        
nor does the hope that you may search also,        
for me, rebuilding a broken father
unseen, from fragment
and rumor.
        
Jessica        
look for me there,        
wherever people were        
and lived and left,        
sweet as the small sun in winter        
bitter as the dream that ends        
in forgetting        
pale and passionless as cold rain        
on strangers' roofs        
empty summer silos.        
       
I stop for dusk        
where there'd been a farm once.        
A doorless frame        
watches over an empty yard,        
silent except for the sweep        
of wind through the overgrown grass        
still unanswered        
searching.