~ a suburban retelling of Seamus Heaney’s “Follower”

My father worked with rough hands
his back bent low like his station in life
between the haves and the have nots
and the homes he built for them.

No craftsman. He would move things
from here to there and back again
dig the ditches that needed digging
complying with the dimmest of requests

without complaint for even the worst
must yet be right or at the very least
must always be made to feel so
while navigating the rough waters between.

I was his witness for a few summers
following in his well-worn modest wake.
Sometimes he gave me direction.
Other times he let me stumble and fall.

I never wanted to be like him
one foot in anger the other obsequious.
But I did grow to appreciate
the magnitude of his struggles.

I was a fledgling dimwitted blind
whining always. But today
I am beginning to see his ghost in the mirror
and it humbles me but gently.

The author, self-described as long in the tooth and sporadic in inspiration, has been published in The Talking Stick, Open Arts Forum, Sunlight Press, Waymark, Truck Magazine, Dark Sire, the anthology Moving Images: Poetry Inspired by Film, Anti-Heroin Chic, Cajun Mutt, Loud Coffee Press, Riddled with Arrows, EveryWriter and frequently in his once favorite breakfast treat, The Drabble. Among others.