Father’s Gift

This spring my father peacefully left this world for greener mountains and brighter adventures on the way to his heaven.  He wasn't much of a talker and rather preferred to experience this world through his hands and his tools.  Well, I turned out to be quite the talker, but to my father I owe a keen sense of observation of the world and its nature without which I could not be the sensitive poet, artist, philosopher, and teacher that I am today.  So today, a poem dedicated to exactly that...  Thank you.

Father’s Gift

A love of landscape
     of smooth deserts
     of broken mountains
and lakes like flattened wads of tinfoil
     some with water
     some without
but no oceans

A sense of adventure
in cars
     taking turns fast
in jeeps
     not so fast
     but slow winding treks
     to abandoned mines
on two wheels
     churning in the mud
     and chasing
     imaginary water
     irrigating the sage with desert
in a boat
     churning a hard channel
     to ski in
     and mapping edges
and hiking
          the top of Angel’s landing
          1000’
     wading
          the end of Whittier narrows
          miles between the cliffs
     scrambling
          into the rutted crater
          of an ancient volcano
     and stumbling
          in dark limestone caverns
          mostly shallow and dirty
          and pissed in
Risking
     severe abrasions
     broken arms
     running out of gas
     always imminent flash floods
     one possible lava eruption
     and rattlesnakes
But no sea-faring

An eye for scavenging
     in red-brown desert dumpsites from the 50’s
          bits of old, dulled glass sun-colored blue
          and rusted tin cans in the shape of log cabins
     in mineshafts and leveled grey cabins from the 1850’s
          rags of stiff yellow newsprint
          shell casings, square head nails, and railroad spikes
          bed frames
     caves and sandstone cliffs
          for mineral rosettes, veins of gold, arrowheads,
          and fossils
     lakes and piers
          dredging with five-pound magnets
     And old TV’s, VCR’s, stereos, and cars
          for bits of colored wire,
          good transistors, diodes,
          switches,
          and condensers to make shocker grenades

A taste for wild game
     venison
     rattlesnake
     rabbit shot with a revolver from a moving camper
     and wild boar never found
     bass, trout, catfish
And how to gut it, skin it, and preserve it

Fascination with artifacts
     wired
          circuit boards, copper wire, silver solder
          housed in metal and wood
     geared
          transmissions, brake systems, pulleys
          caked in dry, sticky dirt
     cast and machined
          engines and their parts
               pistons
               cylinders
               manifolds
          guns and their keys, pins, and stops
          bearings—balls, rollers, and their cages
          metal
          all wrapped in fine oil
And how to dismantle them
     feel them
     and fit them

A green army belt
A nickel plated .357

A combat medic dress coat
complete with shoulder braid
I am particularly fond of that shoulder braid

The smell of sage

The smell of leather
and light machine oil

Cool dank castles of large appliance boxes
that could be broken down into tank treads
to roll away in
down-hill, when too confining

--Jeffrey Scott