"But first, baby, as you climb and count the stairs (and they total the same), did you, sometime or somewhere, have a different idea?
Is this, baby, what you were born to feel, and do, and be?"

-Kenneth Fearing



Thursday, January 12, 2012

Our Story

*




I wasn’t asked either. It was passed down;

my father’s story, which I’ve not deciphered.

He used to take me for drives in the car.



I haven’t solved the questions he left

though every one has changed. Some

are so polished they feel like answers.



Blood is still the greatest mystery.

We create from our own crumbling ruins.

When I couldn’t sleep, he’d sing.



You have me, there in your veins.

So what am I telling you, knowing

you’ll see through platitudes?



You have your own questions,

and you'll construct the memories that stick.

What you need, you’ll look for until you find it.



I was 2 years old in his brown pick up truck,

radio playing Hank Williams. When I couldn’t sleep,

he sang along. I shut my eyes. He drove us home.


                                 
                                           -Brent Allard

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