Something about Failure

I was going to write something about failure
but then I couldn’t figure out what it was,
only a feeling, perhaps something brought in
through the open kitchen window,
with the sound of rush hour traffic, that long weaving
of men & women returning to their homes
from working the day shift — lawyers
& accountants, diggers & builders, clerks
& gas station attendants, insurance people
from the giant Erie Insurance buildings
who do things with numbers & papers,
driving home with their clean hands,
something about failure, like not paying your premium
or the car crash that happened on 12th Street today
& someone’s father I did not know died,
he failed to put on a seat belt, it is that simple,
& then you are dead, maybe because he failed
to remember to buckle, long after he failed
to remember a date or a birthday or to pay
his insurance, his life insurance or the insurance
to cover the funeral that his son must now pay,
as if grief wasn’t enough to worry, his son who failed
to notice the signs of his father’s confusion, failed
to worry, which is right along with failure,
& perhaps a bit of fear, that we will fail.
As we all do. I failed
my own son somewhere along the way. He rarely calls.
He works a good job doing something with computers
I don’t fully understand. I thought I was a good father
but when I reflect as we must when we grow old
I see a thousand failings, a wrong word said, a failed
marriage, the success of his mother, my debts, criticism
when he wanted support, a hug instead of a raised hand.
What is one to do? As we must do, I tell my daughter
when she starts to scream, she wants everything to be perfect — 
her homework, the lines she colors, when she plays
some online game & dies she starts to melt down,
but how can we learn if we do not fail
I say to her, knowing too though that sometimes we fail
even when we do everything right, even when we work hard,
even when we believe. The factory closes, we get sick
& are laid off. Who is to blame? Sick genes, organs that fail.
The heart that stops. And in the end, I guess death
is the something I wanted to say, that today through the window
I felt it, the first wind of fall, the leaves turning red,
the willows long weeping before winter, like stepping
into a river, a place where we finally do not fail,
but swim with the rest of them who have lost,
carried on the strong current, reaching the far shore,
pulling ourselves up to the light, sopping wet.