I look around for a memory of me with you,
uncertain of the length of time
we last walked along that Missouri brook.

The veil of new day lifts
along this Kentucky creek path.
I see me match your tall bent stride—
reed fishing poles in one hand,
baskets in the other.

Your crackle voice:
Have to catch your own fish for dinner,
don’t be so skittish skinnin’ it this time.

But he would always clean the bluegill,
the largemouth bass, the catfish for me.

Catch mine, I’ll tell you a second
story after we fry ‘em up.

A milking cow rounds a slight sweet-grass hill.
We pass the cornfield,
gold-brown silks of tan tapestry.

He nudges, pulls out his pocket knife.
Cut six, watch for earworms.
Best dang bait. 

That night, dinner devoured—
by us, by the dog, too.
Fish bones tossed in a compost heap.
Corn cobs, bare, set high to dry
for kindling, for another day.

We tidied all, settled
into wooden easy chairs
outside around a fire.

You’ll be wanting a second story now,
won’t you?

I think back on the long expanse
of that one blue day,
only now seeing the endless stories
it held.

In memory of my great-grandfather,
Daniel Marion Tidwell Smith. Papa.