My Inspirations

In a moment of understandable frustration with me, My wife demanded to know what I really believed in. I thought for a minute, tear glands filling, "The essential goodness of my parents." My mother was a child of the great city of Philadelphia, In hard times in a hard family, soon to fracture, She withdrew from the days when her father would leave his little girls In the car all afternoon in back alleys near the taverns, From which he would emerge, full of volume and vomit. She grew through school, emerging herself to be a wonderful mom, To kindle her children's interest in the physical world, Geology, astronomy, physics, and the patterned realms Of painting, music, and poetry. She showed me that she loved me. She showed me that parents were people. She showed me that parents were fallible, That not everything could be controlled, And that that was okay too. My father was a child of the land, Of farming in the age of innocence, Long ago down in the southern part of the state of Indiana. He knew of seeds, of frost, of the earth and time, Of rock and root, of wind and drought and rain. He never complained about rain - we kids didn't like the muddy yard That was supposed to be a football field - he'd say, "Tell you what - I'll take the rain. I've seen the other." The most honest man I know, the most honest person that could ever be, He watched the night sky with me when I said, "Moon and tar." He took me to a hardware store on a stormy summer Saturday, Dark clouds coming close, in a car with the thicker sheet metal of the old days. Just as we parked, the first raindrops, that irregular rhythm, compelling, "Hey Doug! Would you listen to that rain?! Let's just sit here for a while." We sat with the rain on the roof as it began in earnest, That rain of a thousand thousand hits, A million baby birds doing their firecracker tap dance above us, That rain that has lasted me the rest of my life. December 31, 2016. For Brenda Chiri-Carroll's contest - 'Who has inspired you most in your life.'