My Father on His Shield By Walt McDonald Shiny as wax, the cracked veneer Scotch-taped and brittle. I can’t bring my father back. Legs crossed, he sits there brash with a private’s stripe, a world away from the war they would ship him to within days. Cannons flank his face and banners above him like […]
Clownlike, happiest on your hands, / Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, / Gilled like a fish….
…but what is primitive is not to be shot out into the night and / the dark. / And slowly the kind man comes closer, loses his rage, sits / down at table.
He is working late on cases. / No impassioned speech! He argues from evidence, / actually pacing out and measuring, / while the fans revolving on the ceiling / winnow the true from the false.
I’m no more your mother / Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow / Effacement at the wind’s hand.
…The mass of stuff / That makes the Sunday frocks collapses / In my hands and finds its shape, only because / They understand the drape of it…
‘A fine bird,’ my grandfather said, / and he’s well brought up. See, he answers / nicely when he’s spoken to.
We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf; / My mother’s countenance / Could not unfrown itself.
… / A joyous-going fellow / I gathered from his talk, / Which both of benediction / And badinage partook / …
‘Father! father! where are you going? / O do not walk so fast. / …