A Poem for Today

I love visiting Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac online every day. Today his entry inspired me to post a poem here on our blog. This poem is in honor of the letters my own Papa so diligently mails me (and the leaves from my own Pennsylvanian homeland I have suspended over my pillow). ~April

This poem is excerpted from Poems to Live By in Troubling Times, edited by Joan Murray.

A Comfort Spell
by Maxine Silverman

I.
My father's teeth gap slightly.
Easy to spit seeds,
a natural grace.

II.
"Pa," I write, "I'm low."
"Better soon," he swears. "Soon. Soon.
You're talkin to one who knows."

Lord, it's nearly time. October.
He'll pick some leaves off our sugar maples,
pressed, send them to New York.
Flat dry leaves,
and rusty rich.
Pa stays in Missouri,
bets the underdog each tv game,
and the home team, there or away.

"Lord," he whistles through his teeth,
"that boy's a runnin fool. Mercy me."

He names himself:
Patrick O'Silverman,
one of the fightinest!

Melancholy crowds him spring and fall,
regular
seasonal despair,
his brain shocked, his smile fraught with prayer.
I offer what remains of my childhood.
I offer up this comfort spell.

Whoever you are, run in nearly morning
to the center of the park.
There, rooted in the season,
maples send out flame.
Gather you to the river the furious leaf.
Mercy
Mercy Buck Up
Mercy Me
Mercy
Mercy Buck Up
Mercy Me

"Pa," I call, "what's new?"
"Nothin much. We're gettin on."

"Pa," I sing, "your leaves came today."
"Oh Maggie," he cries, "just want
to share the fall."