What a father teaches

Herman Sutter

November 24, 2024

My father spoke to me

of birds.

Washing dinner dishes

he would talk

of how they cared for me

when I was young.

I remember the sound of his voice

and the water

stirring in the sink.

The ruffle of suds oozing from

his cloth 

as he squeezed it out.

Remember that Chinaberry tree?

And all those jays?

He said. 

How they cared for you;

so high.

Like you were one of their own.

He said.

In the treetops. You loved 

peanuts.

Just like a blue jay.

That was the year your mother 

left for Tulsa

with that shoe man

she couldn’t stand.

Must have finally tried him on;

liked the fit.

When he was done, we would sit

on the porch

with his beer and watch the darkness 

disappear.

Each year on Father’s Day I rise 

early,

take a pocket full of peanuts

to the stump of a tree I never climbed

and spread them

for all to share.

After opening a beer, I pour 

it out and listen to the suds 

sinking into the earth

and sit motionless, in the shade

waiting for my father’s voice 

to fill the air.

Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/playwright/essayist) is the author of Stations (Wiseblood Books), The World Before Grace (Wings Press), and “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in The Perch (Yale University), The Ekphrastic Review, The Langdon Review, Touchstone, i.e., The Merton Journal, as well as: Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long-listed for the Sexton Prize.