I Would Have Written
a Father’s Day ode
but all that comes out is grief
I snooze the alarm
The way everyone is stressed
has me in reflection.
I made good choices,
so I avoid depression-
but it creeps in
when I see others cry
on this twisted planet
from my moon rock in the sky.
Everyday I blast-off
and hover around;
why are so many people feeling down?
Is it the world we live in,
or is it just how they feel in their skin?
In a world full of woes,
I’d rather be on my UFO.
I have a small grandson,
Quinn.
He serves ice cream
from the crisp, clean air.
He knows not the day,
the forecast, or the year.
I pray his at-play, at-peace
lasts a good long while—
that he remembers
this ease
when today’s formal
education creeps
in to teach,
to introduce him
to inhumanity.
I fell hard for a boy once
against better judgement
I trusted
and I folded myself into halves
scoring the crease each time
I would ask for something
spit back in my face
each time
Going to bed too early
Him pulling on my shirt when I said no
I suppose to the other girls
I’m a flirt
and I get the good ones
and something about me
turns them evil
Because that good guy loved me
or liked me
or wanted to kiss me
I failed the sacred grace
of giving into the blessing.
I was the soulless one
cracking sweethearts
with my mortal attention.
I was the tease,
the prude,
and the whore.
I made them crumple
like good men do
I made them shatter
like good men do
when faced with a witch like me.
Why not follow suit, girls?
When the good man won’t pick you.
I’m the one manipulating.
I’m the evil root.
I made his heart sore.
I played with his affection.
I’m sorry, boys.
I am.
It is the men,
I can’t forgive.
Are we humans the only animals who end our lives
before it’s time to go? Squirrels die from their own
stupidity, but even they get help from the pavement
we pour to roar our cars along what used to be their
homes. And our house cats are fat and lazy only
because they are ours. But humans, we say enough
with this life. I’ll have no more flutter and flurry
of wings at the neighbor’s feeder to remind me I
am alone. I remember despair. I remember sitting
on another porch than this one, no beloved upstairs
slumbering in the cool dark of our shuttered room,
believing the world would not miss me, nor me this
world. I did not want to live but, too, I did not want
to die, just to sleep for a long lovely while until I had
courage to look around and find a reason to stay.
I don’t recall what happened next, the when or why.
Was it like waking from a faint, the swirling in my head
spilling out onto the cold tile floor until I touched again
the edges of the world that held me, hard and fixed but
mine? I went on. I go on. It is what we do, we creatures
with our blood and organs, bone and skin that touches
every grand and grievous piece of all which is not us,
but which we are a part of. This life mysteriously ours.
What is this thing called consciousness, called soul?
Why do we sometimes, some of us, cling tenaciously
to the bodies that house it, while others fling it from us
as if we are not also matter making up this world?
My friend, I have no answers, I only know you mattered
and it matters to the world that you are gone.
i am eldest daughter
who wished to be first-born son
so i could carry some of the load
my sonless father
could not lay down
i once watched him
carry a refrigerator up a flight of stairs
alone
I’M FINE.
he assured
he wasn’t
It’s the summer solstice and I run free with my bare feet,
the summer glow on my skin shimmers in the sunlight,
drops of sweat form on the bridge of my nose.
I feel the light surrounding me.
Weaving through every pore, activating energy within.
I’m wearing my favorite skirt—
the one with slits up both sides,
light, breezy, cozy, divine.
I walk to the garden and let out a sigh.
Just looking around me gets me high:
the tall trees, green grass, the birds and the butterflies.
Before the dawn could find the ridge,
he’d lace his boots in silence,
a coffee cup, a weathered lunch,
and shoulders built by reliance.
The mountain knew his every step,
the drift, the seam, the stone.
It took his strength a little more
each day he called it home.
Some mornings he descended deep
where sunlight dared not fall,
where only lamps like captive stars
could answer darkness’ call.
He swung his pick through ancient earth,
where coal lay black as night,
to pull from buried ages past
a family’s candlelight.
Other days he’d climb the cab
of a rumbling coal truck high,
its engine roaring through the fog
beneath the mountain sky.
He wound through hollows, over grades,
where one mistake could cost.
The weight behind him wasn’t coal—
it was the fear of loss.
He knew each curve by memory,
each switchback, rut, and bend,
and whispered quiet prayers to God
at every journey’s end.
His hands bore maps of honest work—
cracked knuckles, scar and stain.
The dust would cling beneath his nails
though washed a hundred rains.
His children only saw him late,
when supper filled the room.
His tired smile outshined the lamp
that chased away the gloom.
He never spoke of sacrifice,
nor counted what he’d missed.
His love was written differently—
in every calloused fist.
A patched-up roof before the snow.
warm boots against the freeze.
A Christmas tree with modest gifts,
still placed with thankful knees.
The mountain kept a piece of him;
the highway claimed its share.
The coal dust settled in his lungs,
the diesel in the air.
Yet still he’d rise before the sun
to do what fathers do:
carry tomorrow on his back
for me, for them, for you.
And when the old men gather now,
their working days complete,
the mountains seem to bow their heads
beneath those weary feet.
For kingdoms are not built by kings
whose names the histories claim.
they’re built by fathers dressed in soot
who never sought for fame.
So if you hear a coal truck groan
along a winding grade,
remember every family tree
those faithful hands have made.
The richest seam beneath these hills
was never black with coal—
It beat beneath a father’s
steadfast, giving soul.
