Father's Day

          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.