I Wish I'd Written This

Happy Birthday to My Father

By Pearl Ketover Prilik

I sing the song of my father

every particle of my being

today infused with him as

though he stands beside me

and has never left – though

he did vanish one hot

August morning - sunlight

burning through white

coverlets – though I felt

His heart beat three times

Once – Twice – Thrice

under my palm and

then stop – he did not die

I sing the song of my father

Who left with black hair

glinted with silver in his

Sixtieth year – slipped from

any coil mortal or otherwise

but for the coil that holds my

heart pounding my soul still –

I sing the song of my father

He turned my head to

the first cloud in my first

sky - to the wind in the shimmer

of sun filigreed leaves to the

sea rippling – as he drifted sand

through fingers and we sat

Together watching a tiny flag

on the top of a curlicued  

Castle tilt and fall into the

Onrushing tide. 

I sing the song of my father

In the eyes of all who work hard

and deserve respect and those

who cannot find work through

limitation or exclusion.  In the

wonder of all that sprang natural

and all that rose from the mind

of men and women –

I sing

The song of my father who turned

my face to cobalt and burnt sienna

the shock of turpentine on a clear

morning a blank canvas holding all

possibility. 

I sing the song of my father

in the crabs that poked from

the mud on the day on the pier

while he painted and the sun

began to slip below gilding all

In that silent sacred place to

Which he granted me entrance.

I sing the song of my father – to

Sun burnt ribs that rippled under

Young flesh – to his ebony hair

To the taste of salt on his young

Flesh as he carried me far out

Into the sea. 

I sing the song of my father

to that crinkle nose secret

smile he passed to my mother

as they sang from song-sheets

To his eyes closed in ecstasy as

Music shook the walls around

and I peeked from my own

encouraged experience to see

A tear trailing at crescendo

I sing the song of my father as

I feel his hand in mine strong

Ever present – singing in the

Shimmer of leaves in a willow

Rustling in chestnut blossoms

Soaring on the velvet tip of

A blued jay on a clear day

Returning caw for call

I sing the song of my father

As he stood watching my ride

On a carousel light slanting

Through high window – calliope

Playing waiting for me with

Open arms to jump – I jump

I sing – the song of my father

Holding my newborn son

in aquamarine waters high

above his head – diamond

droplets falling about them

I sing the song of my father

Coffee cups before us

Words flying as red cardinals

soaring from- between –above

I sing the song of my father

I sing in memory, in reflection

In honor, in dedication and

In love – I feel his presence in

the air that brushes my cheek

In every particle of my being

and though I thought it a wonder

that he left when his hair was

mostly black and his back straight

when he could bend and rise

From the earth of his gardens hands

rich with fragrant loam – Left still

young enough

I see him now – hair white –

The slightest stoop as he stands

Shining in the blaze of sun

Beams shooting dancing rays

For it is from

His lips - I sing his song

Forever with the life he

Lent to me.

Happy 85th birthday Daddy

Hang on — shouldn't I be posting something nice and romantic for Valentine's Day? Perhaps ... but good fathering is what enables little girls to grow up into adult relationships with men.

When Pearl posted this on facebook recently in honour of her father, I found it irresistible. It is now some weeks past his birthday, as I had other posts to share with you first, but obviously it's fitting to celebrate on any and every day the fact that a man such as this was born and went on to become a father — clearly a good man, who loved life. Thank you, Pearl, for bringing him alive for us as well as yourself, and reminding us of the great value of all apparently ordinary lives which are really full of meaning.

I like the nod to Walt Whitman, too. Pearl says, 'It was my father who introduced me to Song of Myself when I was a small child — I could never read it again without thinking of him.'

Many of us know Pearl (or PKP as she is also known) through her involvement with online poetry groups and communities including this one. You perhaps know that she is also a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist who has had her own practice for 20 years, and that she is the author of books on stepmothering and being a stepchild, as well as the editor of two anthologies of poetry. I know her as a great encourager of other poets, and a person with a tender heart that is easily touched. I think it's only poetic justice that she should touch our hearts in turn with this poem to her father!

She gave me this account of her background:

As should be obvious, (Dr.) Pearl Ketover Prilik was an inveterate "Daddy's girl," with good reason.  Her father was a very young artist (painter) with a congenital, inoperable heart malformation. Due to these circumstances PKP was born unexpectedly to very young parents in her father's hospital bed the night prior to his unsuccessful heart surgery (another story unto itself). PKP's  father was not expected to live longer than two years at the outside.  Her mother was still in her teens and thus PKP began her life in the midst of a grand romantic drama between two young lovers on the precipice of expected tragedy. Given her father's prognosis, his artistic temperament and his long recuperation at home, PKP was greatly influenced by her young father's rather transcendental world view alongside her mother's indomitable 'can-do' attitude. PKP believes in the ephemeral magic of life itself  and contends that poetry is the language that best suits the expression of the felt and experienced beauty and wonder of all in, on, and beyond, this spinning blue marble we all share. 

You can find her books at Amazon and you will find more of her poetry at her blog, Imagine.

(And if you'd still like a romantic poem for Valentine's Day, Knopf is doing that: here.)

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).