Next post: For my father, Albert John Van der Leun
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After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble down the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.
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The look on that kids face as dad passes the tree. Dad will appreciate the hell out of that video in about 30 years or so. Lucky dawg. We didn’t get a video camera til the kid was about 12, in 1991. Fucker cost more’n a grand. Still have it somewhere, I think.
I miss my dad! is good news, I know I’ll be with him again someday! Happy Fathers Day, REW
Dirk
Just one reason why fathers are needed. I am truly sorry for those that don’t have one.
Thanks for everything, Dad. How is it possible that, you will have been gone physically 34 years, come this August. Yet, you live on in my memories and how you taught me to conduct myself as a man. You’re still the greatest man I’ve ever known, and I’m positive you’ll go unchallenged for that title. I was so incredibly blessed.
It took five years to find all the peach pits my father hid around the house Each time resulted in rueful smiles and occasional tears.
Remembering how sharp and smart my dad was when I was young,
& how dumb and stupid he became when I hit my teens,
& how amazed I was at his acumen when I hit my twenties,
& how now, sixty years later, life lessons learned from him
still put me in good stead.
Weekly if not daily I still have a question pop in my head and say, Dad would know the answer. Same with my oldest brother and Mom as well. I do miss them and did not know how good I had it till Dad was gone. May God bless all fathers each and every day and welcome them into His kingdom when that day comes.
Part of the continuing downward spiral of “disadvantaged” families is the lack of fathers therein.
Sheer,unbridled joy in that little guy’s face. Dad knew his sprout would love it,just as he did.
Dads envision things that Moms just don’t. Even better,they act upon them.
Thank You,Lord,for men who care about their children. Even if they are’nt.