150 Father poems

Your head is still restless, rolling east and west. That body in you insisting on living is the old hawk for whom the world darkens. If I am not with you when you die, that is just. It is all right. That part of you cleaned my bones more than once. But I will meet you in the young hawk whom I see inside both you and me; he will guide you to the Lord of Night, who will give you the tenderness you wanted here.

Only a dad, with a tired face, Coming home from the daily race, Bringing little of gold or fame, To show how well he has played the game, But glad in his heart that his own rejoice To see him come, and to hear his voice. Only a dad, with a brood of four, One of ten million men or more. Plodding along in the daily strife, Bearing the whips and the scorns of life, With never a whimper of pain or hate, For the sake of those who at home await. Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, Merely one of the surging crowd Toiling, striving from day to day, Facing whatever may come his way, Silent, whenever the harsh condemn, And bearing it all for the love of them. Only a dad, but he gives his all To smooth the way for his children small, Doing, with courage stern and grim, The deeds that his father did for him. This is the line that for him I pen, Only a dad,but the best of men.

would be coming back from some war, sending back stuffed birds or handkerchiefs in navy blue with Love painted on it. Some sent telegrams for birthdays, the pastel letters like jewels. The magazines were full of fathers who were doing what had to be done, were serving, were brave. Someone yelped there’d be confetti in the streets, maybe no school. That soon we’d have bananas. My father sat in the grey chair, war after war, hardly said a word. I wished he had gone away with the others so maybe he would be coming back to us

After my father unhooded it, lugged it down the steep path to the boat and clamped it on, drew back the cord again and again like a pitch about to be thrown, grimacing with each whining refusal, and muttered, finally said She doesn't want to start, after it always did, and we shoved away from the pier, rowed out of the dense tangle of weeds and lily pads, not once did our resting oars uncross their feet, not even as we entered the shallow inlet between our lake and the next, just purring through the reeds in that narrow passage, over the billow of silt, the rocks, never getting stuck before we flew through the waves, his hand guiding the tiller.

“All folks hev some soft spot,” Ma uster say, “Somethin’ or ’nother Comes out some day Comes out ’fore they know it, Jest like ez not.” ’N’en us kids’d say, “Ma, What’s your sof’ spot?” An’ we’d keep a plaguin’, Till ma’d say, “I wish ’at you youngins ’D run away! Ask your pa’ bout his’n An’, like ez not, He’ll tell you willin’ly What’s his sof’ spot.” ’N’en we’d ’gree to ask him That very day; When his train’d whistle Why right away, We’d jest skedaddle Clean ’cross the lot, To be first to ask pa What’s his sof’ spot. Pa, he’d say, “My sof’ spot? Never hes none!” Wouldn’t tell us neither, But jest make fun; Then he’d tell his brakeman, He’d says “Great lot, Think you’re goin’ to tell ’em What’s your sof’ spot!” ’N’en we’d all go home, An’ after ’while Pa’d tell ma ’bout it, An’ ma she’d smile; We’d ’gin agin a guessin’, Till pa’d say, “Trot! Time you kids wuz dreamin’ In some sof’ spot.” An’ pa’d never tell us, When he wuz in; Ev’ry trip he come home We’d ’gin agin; Onct George sez when prayin’, He prayed a lot, “Please God, wisht you’d tell us What’s pa’s sof’ spot!” One day the opurat’r Sent word by Bert There hed bin a washout, An’ pa wuz hurt; Engineer wuz hurt, too, An’ both might die; Pa wanted to see us To say good-by. We wuz all so still When we went in; They wuz holdin’ pa up, A fannin’ him; An’ pa sez “I may die Jest like ez not, Tell the children I sed They’s my sof’ spot!” But our pa didn’t die, He jist got well; We wuz all so happy, Couldn’t ’gin to tell! ’Cause we all loved our pa, A great big lot, I guess God saw we wuz Pa’s sof’ spot!

II. The first time I had you killed I made you a hero of the Vietnam War. The third grade social studies textbook said young foreign boys hid grenades during corner games, seamstresses doubled as spies. Why wouldn't you have died on those streets, clutching my mother's photo with your thumb pressed cold against her belly, wishing you'd had a chance to propose, hoping for a girl? But that war ended before I was born. Next, I had a drunk driver end you. Said I visited him in prison to spit in his face. Forgave him for a speech during health class. In eighth grade, I made you die young of natural causes, so I could teach a grieving classmate the proper way to mourn.

Your hand on my jaw but gently and that picture of you punching through snow to bring two deer, a gopher, and a magpie to the old Highwalker woman who spoke only Cheyenne and traced our footprints on leather she later chewed to soften. We need to know in America there is still blood for forgiveness. Dead things for the new day.

My father was four years in the war, and afterward, according to my mother, had nothing to say. She says he trembled in his sleep the next four years. My father was twice the father of sons miscarried, and afterward said nothing. My mother keeps this silence also. Four times my father was on strike, and according to my mother; had nothing to say. She says the company didn’t understand, nor can her son, the meaning of an extra fifteen cents an hour in 1956 to a man tending a glass furnace in August. I have always remembered him a tired man. I have respected him like a guest and expected nothing. It is April now. My life lies before me, enticing as the woman at my side. Now, in April, I want him to speak. I want to stand against the worn body of his pain. I want to try it on like a coat that does not fit.

My father was a tall man and yet the ripened rye Would come above his shoulders, the spears shot up so high. My father was a tall man and yet the tasseled corn Would hide him when he cut the stalks upon a frosty morn. The green things grew so lushly in the valley of my birth, Where else could one witness the luxuriance of earth? The plow would turn so rhythmically the loose, unfettered loam, There was no need of effort to drive the coulter home. My father walked behind his team before the sun was high, Fine as a figure on a frieze cut sharp against the sky. And when he swung the cradle in the yellow of the grain, He could command all eyes around, or when he drove the wain. I wonder if his acres now that lie so far away Are waiting for his footprint at the coming of the day. I wonder if the brown old barn that still is standing long And ghostly cattle in the stalls are waiting for his song.

The flypaper hung from the ceiling cork- screws with the weight of dead bluebottles. Not a smidgeon of dust anywhere, the house burdened with an unbearable tidiness that means he will not return.