Happy Father's Day (Boat Yard)

Here in Australia (and the UK too), it's Father's Day.   As has become something of a tradition for me, I'm celebrating on my blog with a poem from the father focused book of poetry that Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I wrote together titled Imagining the Future. This year's poem is the poem that gave the book its title, and was inspired by an image (which now graces the cover) that my uncle took of my grandparent's boat yard where they lived when I was growing up.  The photo was taken long after they moved away and conveys both the stark beauty of the place, and its abandonment - something left in memory, snow covered and still.  When my grandparents lived there, the boat yard was always warm, noisy, and full of sunlight and freshly prepared food aromas. The poem was written for my grandfather Sam, who was something of a father figure for me.  Happy Father's Day all you wonderful fathers, father's fathers, and father figures.  You're far more loved and appreciated than your children (and grandchildren) tend to articulate. 

Boat Yard

Walking the fuzzy line

between deference and defiance

a cold wind opens the door

you slide

into frictive fictive

present.

Holding onto your absent body

too tightly

I find something

tangible

a heart once broken

beats

beneath my own chest.

The snarl of your lip

against kindness in your eyes

how odd to find you

now

still supportive

so many years after you disappeared.

Snow covers everything

not enough for fairytale glitter

just desolate dust

darkening teal on the horizon

and water

always water

together we swim

through a remembered past

imagining the future.