Upon Reading My Father's Diary Of 1972-1984 Poem by Jenny Kalahar

Sliding my hand inside
his old black-covered
and taped notebook was easy,
reading childhood reminiscences like a gift of revelation.
My father's cursive in pencil
never smudged nor erased—
a miracle of first-draft perfection.
I didn't know that he was lazy and shy as a child
wanting the woods and play and privacy
wanting to wander and learn from nature
wanting to breathe the molecules
only attainable within his childhood,
sucking at them like vitamins on the wind.
Wanting more time to roam and sit and feel
wanting his friends back from their graves.
I read on, seeing him attaching
to those soon-to-be-dead boys
before they were ripped from his tender heart.
Dad was too shy to attend their funerals,
too regretful about missing them as an adult

My father out of school was directionless,
work was a chore and a bore,
and so into the Navy he went
to make a man of himself
or to avoid what he no longer wanted

It seems that he'd made a decision, then
to fight his natural lazy tendencies
and to bear down on responsibilities
as if a switch had been thrown
as if he'd decided to stop being a disappointment to his parents
and sincerely face this thing called real life:
study, work, marry, procreate, provide, believe, restrain

I think, though,
I prefer the version of my father who was lazy
who wandered as a free spirit
sitting on a stump to study an unfamiliar leaf or insect
finding a new trail to a creek
standing in awe at the base of a waterfall.
We might have been great pals.
We might have felt more for each other.
We might have found out about each other
below these surface shells.
There may have been a truer connection
and there might have been real poetry
when we laughed together

But he took the necessary path that led to my existence
and I do love him despite his perfection.
The fragrance and spice of his strength still clings to him,
making him seem still tall and strong
even into this, his frail old age
even into this, his frail old age