5:30 AM
Even
summer mornings he rose
Before the house and sun
Putting coffee on, savoring
Those seconds of anonymity
Before strapping on his roles:
Provider, worker, spouse
Cementing block by block
That wall we stood upon
But never saw.
Peeking in at him
Out of my childish ignorance
What could I know of the dreams
He’d frozen for us,
The wraiths he killed.
The coffee is rich this morning
Its darkness deepening these
momentary silences
Before heading off to work.
I
wrote this poem for my dad about twelve years ago. The poet Louise Bogan wrote,
“Women have no wilderness in them,” but I think that it could easily be
transposed to say, “Father’s have a wilderness in them.” I know that was certainly the case for my
father. There is always a certain restlessness,
a tension between the kind of father that they would like to be and the reality
of their own limitations. Dad was never
able to overcome it and neither was I, but, fortunately, I have four fathers in
my life - two sons and two-sons-in-law -
who are much better examples of how to
bridge that gap.
I am immensely proud of all of them.. They are wonderful models for their own
children and the proof is the palpable closeness that shines through when my
grandchildren are with their fathers. Happy Father’s Day to them all.
