Some Reflections on Parents for Father's Day

Father

After Adam Bellow

You were my famous father, Saul, but after age two
I did not live with you. You always remained a distant
cypher. We never celebrated my birthday together,
no cake with funny bunnies, trick candles, giggles

over balloons that burst or whizzed round the room.
No. You were elsewhere and then at Thanksgiving
and Hannukah too. You were elsewhere, fathering
other sons and later a daughter. Each child hoped

they would somehow someday know you, longed
for an orgy of togetherness, sharing the first light,
a beer with their dad, yellow-green fireflies rising.
You married new women, one after another, won

the Nobel Prize, entertained your readership with
your eruditeness, the aging witty, sensitive writer.
You shared with everyone except your offspring.

But contrariwise, I know you: my dream fulfilled.
My father, whom I never knew, cohabits my body.

Christopher T. George

**********************

Red Roses and Orange Lilies

Busy midweek, I drive Mom for a Saturday morning grocery shop,
she worries that the sign says "Speed hump" instead of "bump."

I say is it "catsup" or "ketchup"? She says "It's a different recipe."
I say, in medicine, a cream is waterbased and creme oil-based,

still she worries that the light is taking too long to change, worries
where she is, needs to know, forgetful. My mother at eighty-four.

Christopher T. George

Note: at this time I am featured poet at Hypertexts -- http://www.thehypertexts.com/

Also check out my personal poetry site at chrisgeorge.netpublish.net/index.htm