By the Time I Met Her Father

 

By the time I met her father, he was

already a thicket of details: wealth

as birthright, the blessings of home and health

and loving wife, a life sunny because

it was life, because life seeks out the sun.

By the time I met her father, I knew

him as fisherman, family man, who’s

who of connections, relations, and money —

sometimes it came, and sometimes it went.

By the time I met her father, he had

a century of stories — the war, bad

breaks, islands of repose. He was a gentleman,

a prince of New York. By the time

I met her father, I knew all his songs

and his jokes and his wonder all day long —

spending his spirit down to the last dime.

 

                                                  for Nathan

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

January 2015

 

other longer poems   shorter poems   sonnets

e-mail to Mike   Fox Paws home page