October 2016
David Huddle
dhuddle@uvm.edu
dhuddle@uvm.edu
For many years writing poems has been a way for me to grieve. At wakes, graveside services, and memorial occasions, I feel numb and show little emotion. So if I didn’t have poetry to help me work though deep loss, I’d a much more difficult person than I am.
Things I Know, Things I Don’t (Section 1)
Virginia in early October
is a soft countryside, color not yet
in the trees but the leaves’ green going pale,
the sunlight’s angle sharp, the birds about
to move. Those cool mornings you catch a whiff
of woodsmoke, evenings you feel a chill
ring the air like a high, soft-blown flute note.
That season of my father’s death was not
wrong, not wrong at all. If he had been well
that day he might have taken a walk with
Mother, one of their short strolls. Early that
morning there’d been heavy fog that was all
gone by nine. He’d have liked how that sun felt
on his shoulders. He’d have liked that weather.
Things I Know, Things I Don’t (Section 1)
Virginia in early October
is a soft countryside, color not yet
in the trees but the leaves’ green going pale,
the sunlight’s angle sharp, the birds about
to move. Those cool mornings you catch a whiff
of woodsmoke, evenings you feel a chill
ring the air like a high, soft-blown flute note.
That season of my father’s death was not
wrong, not wrong at all. If he had been well
that day he might have taken a walk with
Mother, one of their short strolls. Early that
morning there’d been heavy fog that was all
gone by nine. He’d have liked how that sun felt
on his shoulders. He’d have liked that weather.
“Things I Know, Things I Don’t” first appeared in Stopping by Home, Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 1988.
©2016 David Huddle
©2016 David Huddle
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