Poets’ Corner: Bridger for Father’s Day

17 Jun Poets’ Corner: Bridger for Father’s Day

Father’s Day is a celebration honoring, well, fathers. The holiday also tributes fatherhood in general, paternal bonds, and the influence of dads in society macro, or in this case micro – read Kierstin Bridger’s tight-knit family trio.

Making Hay

Cottonwood seeds blow in today
white tufts against Colorado Blue.

Holiday season reminds me
of a father’s gifts. My mother’s father

slapped turpentine on her crick-torn foot,
cast sugar to make it sweet.

My mother’s father made moonshine
but hid the still, buried his love

except in cornbread crumbs
and the roof he reminded, overhead.

My daughter has another kind of father
who taught her how to drive

to trust, to swim. My daughter’s gifts
sail on their own now

in briny toasts of oyster shells lifted high
and gulped with mignonette.

The two of them row in pacific waters
throw back their heads, laugh-squint

at all their adventures– Prague?
YES! Bacalar? Check.

Instead of breakfast in bed she’ll call
to wish him a happy one, ask about insurance,

review a donut she knows he’d love. Her dandelion days
will circle and land, pile up like cotton gathered

on green, soft and summer fueled.
His laugh lines will compress, steady

as leather bellows. I’m not teary he’ll say,
her solid tree, allergies is all it is.