The questions I should have asked my parents

The questions I should have asked my parents

The ones I will never ask, for they, the objects of the queries

Are forever beyond reach. The unrequited uncertainties irk me,

In the still, dark nights,” should have when there was time,”

Roll like thunder in my mind.

Where will I find them, keys to unasked questions,

Those that come uninvited, like trying guests.

Knock on the door, push a leg in the narrow opening.

They want to be served. But I have nothing to feed them

I have no answers to the questions I never asked.

In desperation, I scrape old memories

I search for the colors behind their gray veneer

Run old scripts in my mind, raged at the crackling soundtracks.

Why I did not ask, is the main quandary,

Why they never told, will forever haunt me.

Like slow drifting clouds, lost in the play-act of colors,

Indefinable answers waver my sight. Then I grasp it,

With an abrupt freeing of sight, I know,

These questions I should have asked, are my arsenal of arrows,

My lasting connection to the past.