by Gil Hoy
he was my father.
I never knew
him very well
because he wasn’t around
when I was born.
You wouldn’t know
He married my mother
when she was just 16. That he
took my sister to the park
Most Sunday mornings
so my mother
could sleep in.
You wouldn’t know
a lot about any of that.
That he didn’t eat meat
and coached
my sister’s
soccer team
That he was
a very fine student
and would have made
a fine lawyer.
That he was passionate
about lifting up the weak
and the poor
That he believed America
is a great Country.
You wouldn’t know
much about any of that.
You wouldn’t know
That he began to question
why we were there
before he died.
That he forgave his enemy
Who planted the mine
that blew off his leg
on a faraway field.
You wouldn’t know
anything about any of that.
I know his small, rectangular
white marble marker
because it bears his name.
I don’t know a thing
about many of the others.
Ten thousand years from now
passersby may ask
what type of place this was.
I don’t know
what the answer
will be.
Carl Sandburg wrote:
“I am the grass.
Let me work.”
The grass wouldn’t know
that my father
Liked to write poetry
and read his poems
to my mother.