Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the ***** sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging.  I look down

Till his straining **** among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a *****.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper.  He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf.  Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no ***** to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

The Israelis taught me and they taught me well
How to **** you and I to hell
Endless days spent waiting in fear
Until I felt no more
First defence, well that was me
Waiting for the bomber
"STOP or I'll say stop again"
To die would be my "honour"
I couldn't let them take the Jews
It happened once before
So I hunted and I waited
To settle that old score
And still I hunt and still I wait
For those condemned to hell
Defending not just Israel
All innocents as well
So if you've hurt the meek and mild
Or raised your hand to a tiny child
Your time is up, the sand's all run
Finish yourself or face the gun

Tottering across her farmhouse floor,
Fixing breakfast,
Baking muffins,
Frying liver and onions,
Caring for her "boys";

Sitting on her purple walking chair,
Asking how the cattle are,
And what I'm going out today to do;
She's crippled up, but she's not through.

She barely has the "oomph" these days
To lift her legs into the truck,
Her body hunched over,
Head barely at the window level,
To ride to town to see the doctor
Or go to church and wait
While I shop and run my errands,
Before we head back home again.

Things move slowly now as time grows short;
The walker crawls across the floor;
Simple tasks become her tedious chores,
But still she cooks and cleans between short naps.
She worries more, but I have watched her praying,
Sitting by her bed, hair up in a cap,
Squinting hard to read her Bible,
Lips moving as she goes to prayer...
My name and many others whispered there.

bending and reaching
in the sunshine and fresh air
she hangs up the clothes

Were I given a life to return
To hold again my newborn son,
I'd take time to be present,
Really "there,"
Beside, behind him,
As he learned to run.

Instead of the tower on the hill
I tried unsuccessfully to be,
I'd walk beside him on the path,
Reminded of my boyhood memories;
I'd leave the sermons to the priest and be the dad.

I'd get us shovels,
Deep to dig our conversations,
Embrace the work and sweat and look for more,
Pick and bar our way to Rock,
Drill and blast our anchors to the floor.

Before the storm surge of his teenage years,
I'd strive to see strong footings were in place,
Weld strong the structures while the girders rise,
Pray the work would stand the weather's cruel face.

The past, now present has me chilled;
The distances are lost in haze;
What I see now from my distant hill
Reveals broken structures to be razed.
God grant us time to renovate and fill
Remaining years to bring Him praise.

It still slaps me in the face
Every time I see her
Look into her eyes
Or see her smile
Even after all the years
It is still like the first time
That love at first sight
That never died
My heart is clay
Worked by the hands
Of her love
And I will always be smitten
By her
As long as I am alive

She caught him out in the shed
Like a thief
Stealing a moment of pain
Wracked by sobs and pouring out tears
Over small and faded pink canvas shoes
The shoes had supplanted his purpose
Sapped his intent
They made his tools indifferent
And uncaring
Turned them into nothing more
Than rusting steel and hanging shapes
Outlined on musty pegboard
That meant nothing
Nothing at all
Until her small and gentle hands touched him
And in shame
He dried his eyes
And put the shoes away
Back in their box on the shelf
And became a man again
Lived again
And worked again
In his shed full of tools

Father's Day 2015 in Charleston, SC

When the murderer goes numb,
Thinks actions imply no consequence,
No need for forethought,
No heaven to approve nor disapprove,
No yearning hell to shun,
The act of killing becomes amusement,
A way to unsettle the ennui.

Drape a twisted mind in a Confederate flag,
Lace every thought in outrageous racism,
Give time and means and venue...
Turn the other way as percolating HATE
Photographs himself burning the Nation's flag,
Cradling symbolic rebel colors,
Proudly displays the vestiges of apartheid,
Rants villainy on the web,
Mind sick, and gifted with a gun...
The perfect recipe is prepared
For hellish fun.

Indoctrinate
This weakened mind,
Stir in a diatribe or two,
Look the other way,
Avoid the warning signs...
And wait...
Hope for the best,
Don't intervene...
We'll see results again
That we have seen....

The pastor greeted him at the door,
Invited him to join the Bible study.

Sitting through the heart-deep prayer,
Embraced by kindness as a stranger,
He chose to follow through,
A snake in the house of innocence...
Firing and reloading...
A coward's calculated act
To incite rage,
To challenge Haters everywhere
Race war to engage....

Looking into the killer's eyes,
Survivors speak of deadness:
No emotion, no elation, no remorse....

And so on Father's Day,
I weep and pray
For brothers and sisters
I have not met,
Mourning the dead (in Christ),
Who died at Mother Emmanuel.


(On Father's Day, 2015)

And a woman who held a babe against her ***** said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.