TravisAllison.org

… that I remember about my Father

I can think of lots of big things, but
It’s the special little things that I remember best.

The way he cleaned the links of his watch
With the cover of a church bulletin;
Head down, eyes moving
To look at the people around him,
At the minister and back
To the watch.

The way he uses his whole strong
Farmer’s hand to lift his dark glasses
Higher on his nose.

And the humour of his pose
In front of the kitchen window
Looking with pride over his
Farm, his barn, his dog,
As he tucked his shirt into
green work pants after breakfast.

The way he tried, in his way,
To quietly look after me
And I see now his frustration
At having it all come out entirely wrong.

No single man has had such a profound
Affect on my life, I thank you.

Quite by accident today I found an old journal and this fell out of it.   I wrote it for my dad when I was in university.  It’s clear that my writing hasn’t improved all that much since then.

Funny aside: Dad called last night to ask how I felt about writing a book.  I told him words weren’t really my thing.

I put the poem in as I found it but I would really like to clarify the 2nd last paragraph.  I don’t think he thought I came out wrong,  just what he was trying to do came out wrong.

I was Emo before there was Emo.