Soft Evidence

"If he were dead
I’d know it.
Don’t ask me how.
I’d know.
*
I have no proof,
no clues, no answer,
nothing that proves
or disproves.
*
There’s the sky,
the same blue
it always was.
But that’s no proof.
*
Atrocities go on
and the sky never changes.
There are the children.
They’re finished playing.
*
Now they’ll start to drink
like a herd of wild horses.
Tonight they’ll be asleep
as soon as their heads touch the pillow.
*
But who would accept that as proof
that their father is not dead?
The madness goes on
and children are always children.
*
Well, there’s a bird
the kind that stops in mid-flight
just wings in the air and almost no body
and it comes every day at the same time
to the same flower just like before.
*
That doesn’t prove anything either.
Everything’s the same as it was the day they took him away
as if nothing had happened
and we were just waiting
for him to come home from work.
No sign, no clue,
nothing that proves
or disproves.
*
But if he were dead
I’d know it.
It’s as simple as that,
Don’t ask me how.
If you were not alive
I’d know it"

Ariel Dorfman