Although this is ostensibly about shoelaces, times tables and swans in Prague...it is obviously a love poem for me Da....now that I can't bring him anywhere...I bring him everywhere.

7 TIMES 7 IS...?

When I was four
I fretted

over things I couldn't do
like tie my tie...tie my shoe

laces were
beyond me

as were such things as
7 times 7 is.  . ?

My Da  would get it right
Every time...I'd...eh...forget.

Or he would tie my laces
so they couldn't come undone.

Or do me a splendid
Windsor knot.

For the life of me I
simply could - not.

And when I grew up to be
5

would I know by then
maybe...by 10.

Was never sure
about being sure.

Ties...laces...times tables
defeating me.

My father all love
and hugs and smiles.

Now them...them I
could do.

And my father could
pin a river down

a blue line flowing
in an atlas

watching it wriggle
under his thumb.

"Vltava!"
he'd command it

and it would pause
to listen to its name.

He told me the river
lived in Prague

and that was somewhere
I...forget.

And here I am at almost 64
gazing at the Vltava in person.

Know it for what
it is

and all its swans
all its swans.

I even now where
Prague is now.

I stand in its
December.

My father who art in Heaven
I pray to you

as I used to do
when I was 2.

You better
than any God

I could ever
imagine.

So here I be in Praha
watching the waters

of the Vltava
repeating a Czech tongue twister

laughing at its absence
of vowels.

"Prd krt skrz drn, zprv zhlt hrst zrn!""
What a howl!

Still have trouble with
those ****** laces.

My wife laughs as
they come undone and. . .come undone.

**** them!
**** them!

Can only make a bad stab
at a Windsor knot.

Get by by
not wearing a tie.

Hugs and loves
and smiles?

I know them
by heart.

I hug you
in my mind's eye.

Know now
that 7 times 7

is and always will be.

*

Prd krt skrz drn, zprv zhlt hrst zrn!

A mole farted through grass, having swallowed a handful of grain