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Open Poetry #37
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Washed By The Rain
| Open Poetry #37 |
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Washed By The Rain |
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icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows 
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He’d been schooled to be an engineer before he chose to fight the Second war, bright enough or so they’d said to do the calculus inside his head. Later, though he had grown up into money expected to nurture fortune maybe even to build fame, he had simply walked away one day. My gran’ma said when he came home he wasn’t quite the same; he’d just kept on moving forward OK in knowing every day life ground a little more away. You see my father pushed the big rigs from the Gulf to Bangor Maine on bad roads they called the corridor. What I wouldn’t give today to see him once again, driving on those back roads too many hours past his book, staring down the night pushing through bone weary tired yet he had this look, caffeine wired cigarette a’dangle, tucking tight into the misty curves sharp eye out for scales and dogs and deer and folks who’d lost their way, more coffee in a flask, sliding gears without the clutch in a borrowed dual stick White or maybe a big old red Brockway, sometimes telling quiet tales about surviving with his choices and a hard life on the road. I never really knew what he thought of me, except he’d let me join him when he was running free and pay me common wages to help him move a load, but I remember his deep belly laugh winking at some waitress and dropping her a tip as he shunned the sneers of trolls whose preternatural fears made them clutch at social caste as if to shield them from the riffraff in diners on the road. Sometimes for a thousand miles he wouldn’t say a word. Lost in reverie, too many slips of memories from countless trips out on the white lines; he would drive and I’d just ride then some little random spark would light him up inside to share an understanding or some insight of which he was aware, some rich organic take that I had never heard, or maybe soundlessly to point a hand or just to share a single word; sometimes we’d be in traffic sitting high above the tide maybe laughing at the little ones old enough to know why they were flashing thighs and cleavage in car windows down below. From him I learned that loyalty was more than just some words and if I’d lost track of freedom I should sit and watch the birds. ©2006 by icebox |
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| © Copyright 2006 icebox - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
icebox You are lucky to have such memories of your dad....I was very touched reading them.  |
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SEA 
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 2000-01-18
Posts 22676with you |
what an excellent story you tell! Made me think of a few in my family just like this...  |
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iliana Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434USA |
I think I would have liked your father, Mr. C. He sounds a bit like my grandpa. My grandpa took me cane pole fishin' instead of on the road. And other times we'd sit swinging the porch swing for hours with his dog Speedy on his lap. He never spoke much...when he did, it was meaningful. He taught that dog Speedy to spy a groundhog off in the distance beyond my vision and go trap it without uttering a word; then he'd go get his shotgun. .....jo |
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Honeybunch Member Rara Avis
since 2001-12-29
Posts 7115South Africa |
"and if I’d lost track of freedom I should sit and watch the birds." Now I know why I do this! A delightful story - makes me really know how important the job of parenthood is. We generally don't know it until it's too late. |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
Icebox. You bring back memories for so many... My husband drove a White,In fact he loved that truck. He carried the lonesome ways he drove to our travels and often while riding long miles it was in silence. All of a sudden his hand would fly up and if I was not quick to grasp the moment, I thought, Oh boy,I missed that whole conversation. Smile to you, martyjo |
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jody5 Senior Member
since 2005-12-21
Posts 876California, U.S.A. |
Wonderful story poem and full of light. It rates a standing ovation. Thank you for the Joy it brought me in reading it. Huggs Kimberly |
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