Safety
Rolling
laughing
down the hill
the game turned
terrible
without a warning.
The waterfall below
closing on its prey
devouring
first my screams
and next me.
I saw it all
the flash
down I went
drowning in the ocean
cold
and alone
without a chance.
At the brink
he came lifting me
and up
into his big strong arms
I went.
Safe
my world put right
in my daddy’s arms.
My Shield
I sit watching
an image of myself
from a before.
A picture on the wall
me sitting
watching my dad fishing
before
before he left.
Sandwich in hand
my feet propped up on a log
under the bluest of sky
kissed by waves
lapping at the shore and me
safe behind the log
within my father’s protective view.
He was barrel-chested
larger than life
his pole in hand there
plumbing the depths
and the miracles he brought me
on his hook
oh what a delight.
This memory is sweet
without those days
warm in the sunlight me
a kid savoring the peanut butter & jelly
relaxed and safe
I would be defenseless
now.
Remembering
being protected
watched
and loved by my dad
becomes my shield today.
When I was a kid I thought my dad was a Superman. He could lift heavy things with ease. He could swim like Johnny Weismuller and do jack-knife dives off the edge of a swimming pool and enter the water smoothly. He could see me in the back seat of our car and tell me me to stop even thogh he was driving and facing away from me. He could see me without having to look.
He could build anything. The garage had a work bench and above it was every hand tool in the world all kept arranged neatly on hooks with painted outlines of the tool that belonged on that hook. He had big wooden tool boxes. These boxes were filled with drawers, lined with purple felt, which held the hundreds of shiny gizmos that only my dad knew how to use. Visiting his “work” revealed a world of big machines, whirling things and saws that my dad used to cut steel. You see he really was Superman... the man of steel.
He was my first super hero.
Bob