Preacher Dad

 

Poetry host Denise Krebs inspired us at the ethicalela.com Open Write to use a mentor poem in our writing today - so I used Billy Collins’ “Irish Spider” and a stanza from Kevin Hodgson’s “Short Thoughts About Writing” (stories don’t exist until we speak) in today’s poem. 

Preacher Dad

It was well worth traveling home 

for Father’s Day 

just to sit at the ancestral oak table eating piping hot chicken pot pie, 

sharing wine and stories- 

 

stories 

don’t exist 

until we speak 

to laugh 

reminisce 

remember 

and reflect 

as he pretended 

to be any old average dad 

father of two ill-behaved 

         preacher’s kids 

like God hadn’t given him an extra sprinkling of love and wisdom 

         for the task

but not fooling us for a minute!