My Father´s Poetry

“If he writes her a few sonnets, he loves her. If he writes her a few hundred sonnets, he loves sonnets.¨

I don´t think my dad ever wrote a sonnet for my mom. His poems don´t tend to rhyme, and he only shows me the ones about him. They divorced after 9 years, so maybe a sonnet is the secret to a lasting marriage.

It wouldn´t surprise me. I think poetry has purpose.

I thought that my dad´s poems served as records. He wrote one about going to a coffee shop right after getting home from it. He also wrote about his childhood log cabin forty years late.

One night, I came home from riding my bike. I had enjoyed it, but I was bothered by the way that the time slipped by. I enjoy a moment, and then it’s gone. Then the next and the next and the next. Don´t you wish you could preserve happy moments?

He told me No. That isn´t how time works. And he went back to painting a figurine.