Mom’s real-life family of origin. That handsome devil on the left is my Pop. I’m the tall one on the right. How many times do you suppose an Olin Mills photographer had to look at this same pose in the 60s?
In honor of all the Fathers out there, and in celebration of their “Day,” I’ve been saving up a small cache of poems. I love that all three are written by, or about men who are/ were fathers.
All are very different pieces, and all speak to different facets of the condition known as “manhood.” One is of the Veteran who never watched “War Movies.” One is of a man wishing to resurrect his younger years fathering his son and sharing adventures in a canoe. And the third, was written about the camaraderie and ritual of having breakfast, lunch, and “coffee” at Jack’s Place, the restaurant and small town bee-hive operated by my husband’s Coon Hound raising grandfather.
Happy Father’s day to All Dads– both here now and those who have already gone on. Know that you will live forever in the fiber that swaddles us up together as a family
#1 Sailor Man
#2 Resurrection
Looking backward, time with our children seems to have rushed by like running water
Resurrection
T. D. Richards
Hope dead that it will be reborn
in this life, the canoe lays upside down in
a field of weeds.
A warped bottom proudly shows
a roadmap of its weathered history.
Anyone interested can see it has lived long.
Early on, a companion for father and son,
it now seems to be in the way. It can’t
help it wears heavy metal and is extra long.
How to compete with youngsters
who are sleek and sexy in fiberglass.
What really matters though is
who’s left to recount it’s connection
with its’ family of origin?
Who gets excited telling of its passages?
Who can thrill by reciting its blustery
as well as its halcyon days?
Who is there who can point out
which dent came from Sugar Creek
in Parke County and which came from
the West Fork of White?
Like few others she is not totally forgotten.
Some believe that there’s a river
to cross when you die.
Father to son, refit the old lady
when it’s time for my last voyage.
If it’s true, I’d like her to smooth the way.
#3 Coffee Shop routine
Champion of Hound Breeding and owner of the Town’s best Diner
I believe this piece first appeared as a tribute to Grandpa CoonHound in the local newspaper
Marjie Gates Giffin is an Author and Poet and one of my very favorite people in the world. Look for her new book of poems coming early next year
Click to order TD Richards’ book This Side and That from Amazon. Look for his new collection coming soon!
