I am zipped up in Daddy’s green sweater.
Mom knitted, purled, cabled together
some semblance of love.
He wore it with joy almost every day,
telling all admirers how it was made with love.
It’s wrapped around me,
but it’s not his firm arms,
not his smell (which wasn’t peppermint
or aftershave, but just him),
not his whisper in my ears,
Love you so much.
How can another year have past
without him? How can a sweater
be both so full
and so bereft of him?
poem- Daddy’s sweater December 17, 2021
poem- Father’s Day June 21, 2020
My father’s ashes are beside me. Once
Every day was Father’s Day,
Now every day he’s absent,
But every day he’s here.
Love never dies.
Devotion binds fond memories;
so long as we remember him,
it’s always Father’s Day.
poem-weeping December 2, 2019
He, loved filled,
would be caught weeping.
The first time,
graduation.
The second,
over broken relations,
feeling her pain, worried
she’d be okay.
Later,
from loneliness,
from frustrated, infirmity,
he would weep, “Please come!”
I’d wrap my arms around him,
sit beside him,
share those moments of fragility,
so thankful for love,
so thankful for him.
She’s never shown a tear.
Year after year,
muttering,
grumbling,
no personal responsibility,
dark heart.
Her rages
call for no sympathy.
At least,
from me.
poem-when May 29, 2018
(An early Father’s Day poem)
.
When I was little
your face was behind a camera
capturing moments of my small life,
fearlessly climbing the steps on the tallest slide,
thigh high stretches for a toddler,
far above your head,
not afraid;
no pain had touched me.
Your greatest gift was security
to grow up confident in your love.
No one else ever loved me so well
or with such shameless devotion.
Oh, how great my loss.
When I miss you,
as I often do,
my memories are lit with
gratitude,
gratitude,
gratitude.
poem- journeys October 6, 2014
Like a stone on the beach
she picked him up,
and took him home.
He filled her with new life,
and they held companionable
hands, two became four.
Beneath the bubble,
Poisons devoured him in relentless nibbles,
and the doctor said his only hope
was a healing journey
to a new way of life.
But toward,
is also away,
and children waved good-bye
to their skipping stone,
who crossed an ocean and
disappeared into time.
poem-fathers October 5, 2014
I grew up
a pampered princess
a late life arrival, long desired.
I felt my father’s
fondness every day-
a travelling salesman
who never missed a moment
of my active life.
But you
lost your father
along the way, lost sight
of him over the barriers
your mother built between you.
What was it like to find him
as he was dying, knowing
he had never stopped
loving you, though you
were equally lost to him?
Once you found him,
he slipped into eternity.
As I watch you, so
polished at your work,
on this career high,
I wonder,
Are you still a lost boy?
Or did the chance to embrace him
at the end of his life,
to know how proud he was of you,
help ease the sorrow
as you set him free to fly?
I forgive you
for not meeting me for tea
And I wonder,
what kind of father
will you let yourself be?
.
.
(For S&D)
poem- where August 13, 2014
When you went away
full of dreams and plans
we waved your plane off
and wondered how reality
could possibly live up to
your unreasonable expectations.
We let you go to find your way
and when nothing is
what you thought it’d be
We have faith that
you will figure out
the reason,
and create reasonable
reality
for yourself.
entrepreneur support June 11, 2013
My father never
passed a kid’s lemonade stand
without buying joy.
.
.
(Having taken Food Safe, I confess that I am not as generous with stands, but I’m always good for several boxes of Girl Guide cookies, which makes little girls just as insanely happy as the lemonade entrepreneurs were left by my dad). 😉
What’s the point of fashion, anyway? October 13, 2012
Fashion matters because every day people get up in the morning and, with the palette of clothes they find in their closets and dressers, they attempt to create a visual poem about a part of themselves they wish to share with the world.
J.J. Lee. Measure of a Man. p. 53
I was raised by a mother who loved fashion and filled her basement with fabric, patterns and notions. She crafted beautiful garments, and rarely threw anything out. Which meant when we moved her from Kelowna here to Salmon Arm, we moved eight closets full of her clothes, and a hundred or so pairs of shoes. It also meant that Vogue magazine was a staple in our house, and that I grew up with a keen eye on clothes.
J. J. Lee wrote his biography of his father within the context of his time as an apprentice tailor. His father’s suit provided an exploration of the suit as symbol and metaphor in his own life, but also in the life of all men. Clothing makes the man, and he was trying to figure out the man the clothing made.
I love his expression of fashion as a visual poem. It’s very accurate. Our clothes give the message we wish to send to the world on any particular day. Whether it’s laid back casual with jeans and a Tshirt or cute and quirky with a hat, bright tunic and leggings, we say something about ourselves. But we don’t wear the same thing every day, just as we wouldn’t write the same poem every day.
Every day we adorn ourselves to be a visual poem.
I like that.
Invocation for dads June 16, 2012
Our fathers are our first role models of what it is to be a man.
If we are blessed to have a good one driving our household mini van.
He shows us how a romantic partner should behave;
He demonstrates just how our children should be raised.
He shows us this without a word, by what he does each day,
So we’ll reflect his teaching as we go on about our way.
If we weren’t blessed to have our father there to show us what to do,
Let us be thankful there are men, who’ll gather us in, too.
In thanks for each man, standing by his family,
Who cares, provides, corrects and loves, from those of us who see.
.
© Shawn L. Bird 2012 Free use within Rotary, though please indicate when and where you have used the invocation by leaving a comment below. Thanks!
Shawn L. Bird 