Father's Days
We used to come here --
my family, aunts and uncles,
cousins, two grandpas, often,
and grandmas, too --
to this park of five acres,
oaks and grass, thick growth
of guarded green between a small bridge
and a bend in the little muddy creek
it bears the road across.
A wooden sign remembers for others
how a pioneer woman's family gave
this parcel, set apart anciently
from the old homestead of Trail folk.
I've heard it is here my mother's mother's
family used to gather in the 50s and 60s,
big family reunions of cousins, uncles,
aunts, grand-ones, babies, too,
coming to this park because
their family had lived in these parts once as well.
When I was a kid we'd gather here
each Father's Day in the sun of June,
western Oregon, amid farmers' fields,
grassy places and empty dirt tilled
just off the highway.
I used to love the way Grandma cooked chicken,
and sometimes baked a bunt.
I remember fruit and salads, too.
It was the only time I ever
ate those salty chicken-flavor crackers.
All of us would eat food spread over
the picnic bench nearest the park entrance,
a big enough space for us kids.
No table here now, I can't find
even a spot of raw gravel where it
must have been dragged away from: only grass
in late afternoon sun
shines callow here.
Someone used to string up a high net across
this dip in the grassy glade, and we'd
play at badminton, batting the plastic-feathered
little odd white bird thing back and forth,
overhead, sun in our eyes, on long narrow rackets.
Such free fun we enjoyed.
Or we'd throw a frisbee far across
between us on the open air, dry gopher-pitted spread.
Often we'd miss the mark or the wind
wheeled the discus high up onto tree branches,
clung there for our comic exertions.
Far across that mere five acres we trod later on,
led through the rough wilderness to see other kids
splashing on the muddy shore hidden and
shaded by the tumbled trunks and sticking
plant life -- burrs and weeds and blackberry mazes.
I don't know why we never brought
swim trunks, never waded in with the
older kids, little kids, sometimes a dog.
I might have been a little afraid of it all.
The minnows fish the cool flow now, over
rusted banks marked by fresh foot- and paw-prints.
I spot the hole some kids dug at
just today, their aimless play
schemed and forgotten.
The still July sun shimmers the shallow,
spread out with subtle forever movements.
Minnows and mud, I take some pictures;
peacefulness greets me openly,
memories rustle the trees and dirt banks.
The old oak stands where we used to climb --
the one I'd remembered, plus the second I'd forgotten,
still gnarled, still growing fat.
Perusing the quiet scene of so many years' past
pleasant days, the whole place feels so small now,
and so quiet.
(7/30/2010)
