{"id":7798,"date":"2015-06-13T11:52:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-13T15:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=7798"},"modified":"2015-06-13T11:52:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T15:52:19","slug":"fishing-with-my-father-1970","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/fishing-with-my-father-1970\/","title":{"rendered":"Fishing with my Father, 1970"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Fishing with my Father, 1970<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d have a Pall Mall hanging loosely from his lips,<br \/>\nhis eyes squinted tight behind sunglasses.<br \/>\nThat habit he had of moving his head to the left<br \/>\nto shake back the sun-bleached hair that fell<br \/>\nfrom a side-ways part. Old dark green<br \/>\nboat shoes on his feet, holding the bamboo pole.<\/p>\n<p>1970, probably. I can remember how it felt<br \/>\nto be small and unknowing. This man<br \/>\nwho was everything good and true,<br \/>\nbigger than the sun, wider than the water.<br \/>\nHis instruction so tender and slow,<br \/>\ntaking the hook and the worm, baiting my hook.<\/p>\n<p>My father, squatting behind me,<br \/>\nhis tanned hands placed over mine so tiny,<br \/>\nwe cast the line into the quiet lake.<br \/>\nPromptly impatient, I needed your steady<br \/>\nslowness to keep me still until<br \/>\nwe had a tug, a heavy signal from <\/p>\n<p>underneath where it was always dark.<br \/>\nThen dad pulled hard and the bamboo bent.<br \/>\nOut of the water sprang a mid-sized fish.<br \/>\nDad was smiling, so I smiled back, until<br \/>\nhe removed the hook and threw the creature<br \/>\nin a big red plastic bucket behind.<br \/>\nMy even then poetic soul, was thrown.<\/p>\n<p>Panicked by the death of anything living,<br \/>\nI remember begging and crying, \u201cThrow him<br \/>\nback! He can\u2019t breath!\u201d And my father laughed.<br \/>\nThat made me cry more because it broke<br \/>\nmy heart. But he saved my fish.<br \/>\nShaking his head at my silly indulgence.<\/p>\n<p>That was the conflict that lasted a life.<br \/>\nMy father intolerant of my different way of<br \/>\nbeing a human being&#8211;someone beyond your<br \/>\nself-imposed, limiting scope that meant fatherhood.<br \/>\nWhere did my poetic, vagabond soul come from?<br \/>\nI have seen your paintings and have your jazz albums.<\/p>\n<p>As I age, my face is more yours.<br \/>\nMy one-liner sarcasm comes from your habit<br \/>\nmade mine. Sometimes I catch myself clenching<br \/>\nmy jaw, holding it all in just like you. And as my<br \/>\nbeauty and health start packing, I recognize your pride<br \/>\npulsating through the pronounced veins I got from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fishing with my Father, 1970 He\u2019d have a Pall Mall hanging loosely from his lips, his eyes squinted tight behind sunglasses. That habit he had of moving his head to the left to shake back the sun-bleached hair that fell from a side-ways part. Old&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,5],"tags":[411],"class_list":["post-7798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-musings","category-poetry-prompts","tag-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7807,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7798\/revisions\/7807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}