You Might Not Remember, But I Was There — ImproVerse Free Verse Birthday Letter

My first born son -- I was there-- July 82
Good morning, my first born.
I know it’s early,
just like it was years ago,
but I wanted to let you know that I am here.
Just like I was there then.

Your mother had worked so hard,
and it was painful,
and she was exhausted.
So she smiled tenderly at you,
said “Hello, little one!”,
and held you awhile.

Then she handed you to me,
and she drifted off to sleep,
to get much-needed rest.

How I loved you!
How glad I am that I had the chance
that few fathers have.
I got to hold you for a while,
right after you were born.
I was there.

That seems to be the way it was,
wasn’t it, for years?
I was there.
No Harry Chapin song
(Cat’s in the Cradle)
applied.

Because of the work I chose,
I was there
when you caught your first football
at six months old
in the Johnny Jump-up.

I was there for your first day of school,
and your first church talk,
and your first overnight camping trip.
And when you stole home with the go-ahead run
in the championship Kirkland National Little League game,
I was there as your third base coach.

I was there
for your soccer games,
and your rocket reports,
and your problems,
and your triumphs,
and your blessings,
and your first fish,
and your first dance,
and your first car,
and your Eagle Scout award,
(and all that led up to it!),
and your graduations,
and your first trip to college,
and on
and on
and on.
I was there,
always so proud of you.
I still am.

Now you’re a father yourself!
You’re far away.
And it may not seem like I am there,
but you are always in my thoughts
and my prayers.
Just as you’ve always been,
and always will be.

And I always want to be there,
if not with you,
then at least for you.
Happy birthday, Itty Bitty Kristian!
I love you.
Love, Dad.

Warm Georgia Summer Evening Surprise: ImproVerse Blogging Haibun

From the inside, through my 1990’s shaded-design oval door window, it looked like recent Georgia sunsets: Cool, golden, breezy, comfortably worthy of a front-porch sit for a spell. I knew the frogs would be chirping and croaking and screeching melodically, there might be a whip-or-will or mocking bird or mourning dove singing joyfully at the setting sun, and various and sundry unidentified bugs would be rhytmically scraping and creeking and thrumming and whatever they do, lacing a deep-layered cacophony of sound like a grandmother’s old, well-worn quilt over the newly-mown hay and lawn and the soon-to-be-harvested gold-and-black-tassled corn in the field just beyond the broken-in-half hickory tree.

Surprise.

Stepping out onto the porch, the evening’s still, stiffling air laid on my face and arms like mold in a plastic bag full of what teenaged boys might call “garbage cheese” — not quite rotted into limberger, but still stenchy and pungent enough to make me want to avoid taking a deep, rich breath.

No breeze.

Instead, as I stood still and watched the sunset dapple through the aged oak and hickory trees, as I tried to revel in the natural symphony I’d expected, the damp-dank humid humors of the evening felt as if I was at the end of some God/Satan spraygun of tangible air-mist-grime-pollen. And no scents. Nothing to make breathing the languid vapors worthwhile. No sense of reward or joy or revelation. Just deep cotton-like vapors filling my nostrils and throat and lining my lungs.

I sat down anyway, rocked slowly the way one should on a Southern porch in late July, and waited for an evening breeze to come and wash away the fog-like depth of the moment so I could, at last, completely see-hear-taste-smell-feel-sense all-in-all around and through and in me.

And a distant owl hooted.

When unexpected/
nature clouds your mind, be still./
She’ll clear your senses.

Deep Quilt Georgia Summer Sunset -- July 2019