Father's Day

Neither my sister nor I grew up with a father close at hand. I have one memory of my father from when I was little. After I was in college I looked him up and didn't like him much. After all he had left my mother for another woman (who he later left for another woman) - I googled him and found two references to him on the Internets. One was a birth announcement and the other was an announcement about the death of a boy who he had hit with his car.

Instead of him I had a Grandfather who was close to me and "felt" like a father to me. In addition to him I had Uncles -Max, Harold, Carl, and Dave. And also other men in the community who showed me what being a man was all about. In some ways I was very lucky. I also knew this man who this poem is written about. He was a gentleman and I reprint the poem here in tribute to all the Father's today. Happy Father's Day.

Build good memories for your kids.

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

Ted Kooser,
The United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 - 2006