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Neil Carpathios

Contributing Columnist

I miss my father. He has been gone for many years now. I enjoy replaying in my mind countless tender moments with him. For instance, the time he gave me a special pen when I graduated from college. He said I should use it to sign my books of poems—someday. I do still use it when I give readings and sell a few books (I would like to use it more!). Unfortunately, he passed away before any of my books were published, and never was able to know that I succeeded, in my own small way. Or the time he and I slipped out of church to avoid a dull sermon when I was nine or ten. We stopped at a donut shop for cream-sticks and cocoa, and very special father-son talk that imparted so much more than that sermon ever could. And I could go on…

In the following poem, by poet Jim Daniels, we see how a grown son shares a tender moment with his dear old dad:

Anthem

Two months after retirement

my father is here, to get away

from 6 A.M. and his cup

of empty destination.

At a football game, we huddle

under his flimsy umbrella

talking about the obvious.

He brings me coffee

to hold warm between my hands,

a gift of no occasion.

When we rise for the anthem

I hear the rusty crack of his voice

for the first time maybe ever.

Thirty-three years of coughing

thick factory air, of drifting to sleep

through the heavy ring of machinery,

of twelve-hour days. In my sleep

I felt the cold bump of his late-night kiss.

I shiver in the rain

as my father sings me

what now I hear

as a children’s song. I lean

into him, the umbrella and rain

my excuse, my shoulder

against his, and I imagine my mother

falling in love.

Address correspondence and poem submissions to: ncarpathios@shawnee.edu or Neil Carpathios, Shawnee State University, Dept. of English & Humanities, 940 Second Street, Portsmouth, OH 45662. (740-351-3478).