"Poetry Game," a Poem for my Father

Me and my father, Willis Barnstone, in our home,
Bloomington, IN, early 70s, photo by Richard Phlum.

On the occasion of my every birthday, my father writes me a poem. I remember when I was still a very small girl, around 4, he would read me "my companion of the hills / I take your hand," and he'd take my hand. He also transcribed my poems, as he did my daughter, Zoe's, when she was little. From the beginning he encouraged us all to sing, to be artists. On Father's Day, I offer a poem for my dad that gives a glimpse of our creative lives, when we spent our summers in Vermont. 

Poetry Game

—for Dad and Blanche

I could eat the words,

if one were “strudel.”

If it were “cheese,”

I couldn’t stop myself

recalling my friends’ birthday parties,

how the farmer takes a wife,

the choosing game, and my shame

to be the homely cheese

standing alone on a braided rug

breathing in sour smells,

not the savory thyme and oregano,

not the sweet

almond, filo, and honey

of our home, my father

leaning down to read

my page

of scrawls and doodles.

“Bird?”

he’d ask, fountain pen poised,

“What kind of bird?”

“Chickadee,” I’d say,

            or “whippoorwill.”

Their names were their songs.

Chickadee,

his black and white head

at home in daylight,

I could see when he sang,

his sharpened beak writing

letters that disappeared the instant

they were formed on air.

Whippoorwill I knew to be

a homely bird

who sings only in the dark,

invisibly, somewhere

in a thorny locust or fragrant pine

so beautiful, a little

mournful. But why

the mean picture:

whip poor Will?

I tried to think of another pun

less punishing. If I wrote “flowers,”

I understood to cross it out

before Dad questioned the word, unless

it were a verb or arranged,

a bunch of flowers I’d picked

in our field, dried up in a homely jar.

I’d say “tiger lilies,” seeing

their orange blooming

around the boulder where water pooled

after a storm.

I’d say “hollyhocks”

because when I crossed

our dirt road to find Blanche Bleikhart,

I passed their sunny faces

and tall stalks propped up against

her weathered clapboard home,

her drunk husband

bellowing behind the walls.

I’d say “marigolds,” “pansies,”

“poppies,” and “petunias,”

because she’d be kneeling in the dirt,

humming

a hymn to the Green Mountains

spread above her,

a velvet veil across the temple

of sky. She looked up

and spoke with me,

murmuring to calico

kittens winding round her ankles

as she weeded and harvested.

I’d say “Jack-in-the-Pulpit,”

holy and purple, appearing

in sheltered groves, because

the bark peeled away from birches

reminded me of the lines

of dark earth on her knuckles,

and she gently placed some seed pods

in my young palm,

with instructions,

a simple homily.

Because bordering the rows of homely beans,

squash, peppers, and tomatoes,

my elderly friend raised the companion

flowers I’d later learn

keep pests away from our food—

and someday I’d grow

to be an old lady, gifted

with a green thumb

and sunflowers three times as tall

            as I stand, shaded by a straw hat.

—in Dwelling, forthcoming with the Sheep Meadow Press, October 4, 2016.