A Poem For My Father’s Birthday

Do you remember the flying squirrels?

They sprung tree-to-tree, the strange birds of Lake Bluff,

The guardians of the old land, the old Indian road, the old deer path,

A place left alone from the cares of the modern world

Overlooking a great bluff to a lake left by glaciers.

I remember the field in which you planted saplings

And pushed the blades of the old mower along

The old road, perhaps the old deer path later

Followed by Indians. I remember ham and cheese on

The grass and wandering in the wonders of the forest.

As I have travelled through the waterfalls and streams of Patagonia,

The Pirin mountains Of Bulgaria, the cathedrals of Budapest,

The favelas of Rio, stuck in the deep traffic of Atlanta,

There remains as a pillar of my perfect childhood the

Spring, Summer, and Fall with my Father in the forest.

I call my Father most nights these days. I don’t know

How he puts up with my rambling accounts of

These new moments, far less peaceful than those

Perfect moments deep in the old land of Illinois,

That state where our people settled and flourished.

Perhaps these conversations assume we are back

In Lake Bluff, after a visit to the tree nursery where

My father would carefully choose saplings,

Bring them to a new land in his 1972 green Chevy Impala,

Dig a new home for them, and replant a lost past.

I recall the smell of the hot vinyl seats and leaves from our

Weekend trips, the frankincense of my boyhood.

This forest and this time with my father was in

A cathedral God had created for the two of us.

We were two lone hunter-gatherers carrying out

Old rituals. This was before all the finance

That I would later carry out and the finance

That my Father would pause for these miraculous weekends

Together. There would be time later to talk about

Business and the world and the things of the weekdays.

I find myself North in Michigan these days.

My own land now, the commensurate bright stars

And clear waters of Lake Michigan.

A great father gives his son a great vision of

Clarity into such a wise and peaceful forest.

It is what gives me my strength each day.