I called you Uncle sometimes
though at times I wished
it could have been Father.
I did my best to understand
my father in you, what he became
in your presence. Your absence. Death
has not taken that from me today.
Today, when I make bread for my family,
my hands think of you as they work
the dough into biscuits or bread.
Fred bread they called it, the many loaves
you baked and gave so that others might have.
I add the iced water now and ride a memory:
17 miles off shore, bill fishing, 6’ to 8’ foot swells,
a bottle of port shared between lulls. A sailfish
spotted before we turned to outrun the squall
back to shore. Captain Donnie pogoing
the Mam’selle North towards Dauphin Island,
shouldering the waves aside. The hull shuddering
as the twin Mercs hurled us from wave to wave.
Landing with a thwack. My brothers both sick
at the stern. Teetotalers to this day.
As children we once rose together
into the blue beauty of a summer's day.
My brothers and I in the silver cocoon
of your twin-engine Cessna.
We rose from the thin edge
of a horizon we knew safely as home,
lifting beyond the fireball of the sun.
Looking down we accepted the toy
movements of miniature cars and trucks,
our trailing shadow, a winged dream
as it passed over trees and water towers,
the squared shoulders of buildings;
a first glimpse from heaven. I think
of the black and white photo taken that day:
3 small boys with matching
blond crewcuts, your dark hair
against the backdrop of the plane.
A miracle we never questioned.
Post-Covid, Richard Weaver has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His work has also appeared in Conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Free State Review, Hollins Critic, Little Patuxent Review, Loch Raven Review, The Avenue, and New Orleans Review. Richard is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005) which has been performed 3 times in Alabama, and once at Juilliard in NYC. 3 poems appeared in Alabama Poets (1990). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first three years. Richard's poems are forthcoming in the Alabama Anthology (2023) and his 195th prose poem was recently accepted.
into the blue beauty of a summer's day.
My brothers and I in the silver cocoon
of your twin-engine Cessna.
We rose from the thin edge
of a horizon we knew safely as home,
lifting beyond the fireball of the sun.
Looking down we accepted the toy
movements of miniature cars and trucks,
our trailing shadow, a winged dream
as it passed over trees and water towers,
the squared shoulders of buildings;
a first glimpse from heaven. I think
of the black and white photo taken that day:
3 small boys with matching
blond crewcuts, your dark hair
against the backdrop of the plane.
A miracle we never questioned.
Post-Covid, Richard Weaver has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His work has also appeared in Conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Free State Review, Hollins Critic, Little Patuxent Review, Loch Raven Review, The Avenue, and New Orleans Review. Richard is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005) which has been performed 3 times in Alabama, and once at Juilliard in NYC. 3 poems appeared in Alabama Poets (1990). He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first three years. Richard's poems are forthcoming in the Alabama Anthology (2023) and his 195th prose poem was recently accepted.
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