hard times by Charles Dickens

sigh
I had a father
from a distance
and
the day is
sentimental and I suppose
we’re supposed to go
along

and I don’t want
to
for I miss the one I could have
had in
him
but for
the demon rum
maybe the war that caused it all
perhaps

the conversations that
we could have
had
the things we could have learned together
and did not

parent
mentor
friend

love of outdoors that was his as a child
and I trust
I hope
a man

I came across old photographs
one with him wrinkly
dressed
sporting a fedora
decades before the Spielberg
re-invention
though maybe
Steven
had
such
a photograph as well

c l couch

on Fathers Day


Dickens really did write a novel called Hard Times

I notice nearly all the the tense is past, real and nostalgic, as if events as well as wishful feeling can only go back there

sigh

today in the USA is also Flag Day, and globally it’s Mitzi’s birthday, Mitzi our dog of seventeen years, who appeared as a scrawny foundling puppy on the porch and grew to be a fat and happy dog

photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash