Every year for Father’s Day I write my dad a letter telling him how much of an amazing person he is. This year, I happened to also spew out a poem and he thought I should share it will y’all here. So, I know I’m a week late in celebrating Father’s Day on the Internet…but here it is:

We’re running along, chicken-like,

heads cut off but somehow

still functioning.

Sitting outside wishing forth an idea,

any idea,

along with the cadence of the lawn mower.

Thinking about the father before your father.

Father wishing the father before your father

would swallow his pride and tell him

how much love he has in his heart.

Just once.

Running around, chicken-like,

wishing you could make it up to father somehow,

wishing you’d thought of better ideas sooner.

But poverty of thought has a wicked hold of you;

though

somehow,

all these words keep coming out.

Desperate for ideas,

any idea will do,

as you watch a man you’ve loved

as long as you can remember

practice the age-old tradition of

taking long grass…and making it

shorter.

Memories, despite thought poverty,

come trickling through.

Memories of your own initiation to that age-old

tradition

of making tall grass shorter.

What was he like before?

How fundamentally have you changed his life?

Of course you admit an unwilling

ignorance to such thoughts.

You just want access to the past,

when you should really

be dead set on now.

15 June 2014

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