Sunday Poetry: The Tiny Bones Inside His Soul

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  We began last month, and if you didn't join us then, don't worry.  This is a drop-in, drop-out adventure.  You can read about the purpose and inspiration behind Sunday Poetry here.    

What's your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read.  If you'd like to tell us what the day's poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you've chosen to reflect on, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored.  But there are no demands or imperatives.   The photo on today's blog will appear each Sunday along with a link.  Out of respect for copyright, I won't be posting the poem of the day on the blog, but it will be just one easy click away.  If I have something to add, I will.   If you have something to add, please do.

Today is my father's birthday.  He turns 93 and still lives alone in Florida, where I grew up.  He's not an easy man, nor was his life easy, so when I went in search of poems about fathers, I discarded most of them.  Some are gaggingly sentimental.  Others portray an accessible man I never knew.  Then I found this one.  Although it's not quite the story of my father's life, the feel of it seemed right, and it expresses, so profoundly what I often write about, the impact that people we may never have met still have on our own lives.  You'll understand when you read it.

Late Poem to My Father by Sharon Olds can be found at Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, along with other pleasures.  This title is from a broadcast in 2005, and you can hear that entire day's content, including the recitation of this poem by clicking on "listen."  Why not give it a try and see if hearing the poem read out loud brings new depth to your experience?