THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
—Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
________________________
I REMEMBER WHEN
my father climbed the western mountain.
Every day he chopped more
of its peak off so we could have more
daylight to grow our food in, and when he'd
chopped deep enough that in midsummer we had
sun for an extra minute, which
is, of course, an exaggeration, he
knew he had done something real, and called us
to watch the sun settle
in the chink and disappear.
Next day the sun had moved, but he dept digging
the same dent, wanting one day a year.
One day, he told us, the mountain would be
chopped in two and there would be
one complete day
hours longer than there'd ever been.
People in the town called him "Father" too.
Some volunteered to help, but no,
it was his, his dent and his light;
they were lucky
he was willing to share. At night there were new stars.
—When he hit a spring and the water gushed out
a waterfall, flooding the valley, the town,
to form a beautiful lake, deep,
cold, and full of fish found
nowhere else, the animals that lived
wild on his mountain rejoiced and grew
wilder, more passionate. They rejoiced!
We still do.
—Michael Hettich
________________________
CHERRY CORDIALS
—Kathy Kieth
A red-and-white box for each of us
every Christmas: thick, rich chocolate-
covered maraschino cherries soaked
in pure syrup. A box for each of us: my dad
and me: a rare indulgence from his dour
mother. Two kids we were at Christmas,
my dad and me: suckling on luscious cherry
bonbons, leaving out my mother across
the room as we drew up all that sweetness
once a year: lost in thick, dark sugar. . .
_______________________
WAITING FOR DAYLIGHT
—Kathy Kieth
Addled by drugs, my father is
a handful for the night
nurse, but settles when I sit
with him. Still, he fiddles
with tubes, tries to re-arrange
the imposements of a hospital
bed. Hoping to distract, I trigger
old memories: it works; nurses
withdraw into their own shadowy
midnight of charts and carts, slick
dark hallways. . . He points out
a big black dog on the foot
of his bed: visitor I'm not ready
to see: hound that waits with us
for tomorrow, for the decisive
scalpel of daylight, for bright sun
to flood this room with his new
family. . . Meanwhile we hold
hands, talk about our old life,
about the three of us before
my mother died. And the black dog
listens, waits with us: now and then
lifting its huge, dark head. . .
________________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)