Losing My Father by Sally Buckner

Poetry Cam

Poetry News

Poet Profiles

Search for poems

Want Your Daily Poem delivered right to your mailbox every morning?

For Email Marketing you can trust

Company Email:

Ask for this YDP anthology at your favorite bookstore or order it online today!

Losing My Father
by
Sally Buckner

“I’m sad to hear,” my friend writes

“that you have lost your father.”

She continues, proffering sympathy

like the casseroles that fill my refrigerator.

I read her well-meant words, fold

the note with unnecessary care, drop it

into the stack on the silver tray.

I have lost my father?

How careless of me! Where

on this suddenly askew earth could I

have mislaid him? Perhaps if I check

the premises once more, peer through

the clumps of dust-bunnies congregated

under various beds, shuffle clothes

in the crammed closets, lift

each cushion of the overstuffed sofa, perhaps,

perhaps I’ll discover him, plaid shirt rumpled,

but the lopsided grin the same, the balding head

gleaming as if waxed, the gold-brown

eyes still bearing their ember glow.

How could I lose my father? I admit

I’m careless, have to search

on an almost predictable schedule

for car keys, datebook. I misfile

checks, prescriptions, business letters. Bills

come up missing every month, only

to appear once I go through the scatter of papers

blanketing my desk. Family recipes vanish

like cards in the palms of magicians.

But lose my father? The things I lose

I have held in my careless hands, my forgetful

fingers. I held my father—I hold my father

close, close in my heart.

Sally Buckner (1931 - 2018) was a life-long North Carolinian who published fiction, reviews, essays, plays, and two poetry collections, Strawberry Harvest and Collateral Damage. She also edited two anthologies: Our Words, Our Ways: Reading and Writing in North Carolina, and Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry. Having taught at every level from kindergarten through graduate school, Sally devoted her retirement years to writing, family, and social justice. Her work supporting North Carolina's literary community—sponsoring a high school poetry contest, compiling two anthologies of North Carolina writing, and working on projects devoted to the state's writers and their writing— earned her numerous awards.

CamilleBalla:
Perfect poem! Brilliant!
Posted 06/24/2013 10:57 AM

Jo:
What was forgotten was to say Thank you for writing the poem. It says it so well.
Posted 06/11/2013 12:23 PM

Jo:
I understand the poem differently. You didn't lose your father. Your father died. But people are reluctant to say that and it's understandable. But from my own experience, I prefer the straight on approach without couching it.
Posted 06/11/2013 12:06 PM

SAR2126:
I believe in perfect poems. This is one of them.
Posted 06/11/2013 10:35 AM

LindaCrosfield:
My kind of poem. Love it.
Posted 06/11/2013 09:40 AM

suesigmonwilliams:
Very helpful way, Sally, to address the language of loss.
Posted 06/11/2013 09:34 AM

paradea:
I love this!! Thank you.
Posted 06/11/2013 09:14 AM

Janet Leahy:
A "scatter of papers" also blankets my desk, your choice of words is exquisite, I too, have lost my father or so the notes said.
Posted 06/11/2013 08:45 AM

TheSilverOne:
This poem speaks to all of us who have experienced loss...beautiful poem.
Posted 06/11/2013 08:00 AM

Larry Schug:
Father poems always get to me, especially good ones like this. Thank you, Sally.
Posted 06/11/2013 07:35 AM

Katrina:
This is thought-provoking, Sally. Thank you. (You don't look a bit like Lady Bracknell)
Posted 06/11/2013 07:10 AM

KevinArnold:
The love shines through on almost every line. Wonderfully muted and nuanced. We got to know the father and the house, with its stuffed closets, pretty well too.
Posted 06/11/2013 05:46 AM

Latha:
Brilliant!
Posted 06/11/2013 05:24 AM

Contents of this web site and all original text and images therein are copyright © by Your Daily Poem. All rights reserved.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Purchasing books through any poet's Amazon links helps to support Your Daily Poem.
The material on this site may not be copied, reproduced, downloaded, distributed, transmitted, stored, altered, adapted,
or otherwise used in any way without the express written permission of the owner.