Eugene

 March 13, 2026

Dad’s 107th birthday. The poems I write on his day involve travel, because when I was working this date happened in the middle of spring break, and I was often somewhere exotic. 

P and I on Blake. 

Some of my mind’s energy is spent wondering why I never “got” my father, why I seldom appreciated what he did, and why what he did was so seldom what I needed. I long to go back and thank him for this or that particular thing. He took us to California. He built the Big Slide and my teepee and Linda’s play house. He suffered through the Boy Scouts. Sometimes I was horrid. Sometimes he was horrid. Even if he was troubling to me, I should have recognized what my sister says all the time, “He was doing his best.” Something made me repelled at his presence, embarrassed by him, whatever the cause being buried in that time before there is memory. I think it was not my fault– how could it be? If I had known what it was I could have forgiven it. Or perhaps not, and it’s better that I never know. But I think he lived long enough for all those rocks and jags to become a level plane. And now, so have I.