Happy Fathers Day

A poem I wrote for my Daddy during one of my 30 day challenges, still in its raw form (meaning still a very rough first draft) and most likely to stay that way. The photos I took last year in 2009 at Camp Caswell. Rachael is working on a Camp Caswell Scrap Book for her Papa, I might clean up the poem and have her put it in the scrap book before she gives it to him. Happy Fathers Day to both my Daddy and that handsome man I married.

Camp Caswell: August 2007

I’m never there after the big melt, when
Daddy brings up the downed logs
felled by winter snow.

He tells me it is an old skill; preserving
the beauty of the log. He uses coarse
marine rope to tie off the 3-point harness.

He hauls the logs one at a time;
behind the four wheeler to the edge
of the woods back behind the cabin.

The secret is in letting the trees season. ‘Bout August,
when the salmon quit running ; when you visit
each summer. He sits on a crude stool he fashioned

from an old stump a few summers back;
with oil, flint and a sharpening stone he hones
the drawknife balanced between two knees.

Its sharp enough when he hollers Brenda Sue;
and yanks a single strand of my hair and draws
it across the edge. Both halves fall as I settle

on the porch. A large coffee mug nested in my hand;
he hums old Merle, Johnny, or George tunes under his breath.
Every now and again I sing the Tammy, June or Dolly parts.

Neither one us of can hold a tune worth shit;
I watch him slowly remove the bark, He sits, judges,
sometimes adjusting the pressure on either side until
the rich marbling of the log begins to reveal itself.