Two Poems for Father's Day

Limits of Spectacle Lake

--in memory of my father,

Walter James Clear, 1918-1966

When the sun had slipped behind the hills

I said, let’s go back. Forget this business

of lures and lines and casting so far

the eye could hardly follow the thread

out to snag a rainbow’s lip. Afraid

we’d lose our way and soon our boat

would spin and sink. There we’d sit

eye to eye with a million trout.

When I was eight I caught my limit.

But not before my father turned the boat

to shore and let out one last line for luck.

I held that rod for all the hope left

reeling in the churning depths.

I don’t know who was more the spectacle that night --

the lake, me, or my father gently guiding the pole

between my unbelieving hands. Somehow he trusted

in the end of all filtering light. When he died

the next winter, I remembered six fish

laid out stiff on a plank of wood.

Eye to eye with the dead, in the wake

of the boat, I learned the limits,

the last ripple of life in a dying fish.

                       

Regret

Mark, I have to tell you:

the starlings returned

to nest in the eaves

where you neglected repair.

You never loved them,

yet last year waited to roust

the messy twig and mud jumble

until each fledgling soared

clear of gutter and roof.

Grumbling, glad to be done,

this was your unexpected gift

and I never thanked you.

Soon summer will spread its wing

over this unfinished house

where porches and railings

await the carpenter’s hammer and nail.

Our children — nearly men —

will desire to roam the city all night,

and I’ll let them go

one feather at a time,

always holding back

and then releasing, alone now

instructing in the mechanics of flight.

--in memory, Mark Benchley Anderson, 1956-2003

© T.Clear