My Father’s Meaningful Season

A ruby ribbon
of fleeting light
passes over pecan trees.
Vacant of leaves
and shell-wrapped gifts,
dad and I can see the sky.

There was work,
with necessary silences.
We ticked-off our time
with the kind of cursing
that turns kids
into men.

It isn’t a secret
that those years
outdoors with my father
are only
family affairs
in Athens
that made an impression.

Pop implanted:
Good luck is a lie.
Success is not a soap opera.
Wisdom is freedom from worry.

Worked with strangers in wind,
and in snow with kin.
We all outgrew my ego,
need to be simpatico,
and in the end,
like daddy said:
Piss on it.

Clifford Brooks (www.cliffbrooks.com) was born in Athens, Georgia. His second full-length poetry volume, Athena Departs: Gospel of a Man Apart, as well as a limited-edition poetry chapbook, Exiles of Eden, were published in 2017. His first poetry collection, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, was re-issued in August 2018. Evergreens, his second chapbook, will be released by Lucid House Publishing in 2019. Clifford is the founder of The Southern Collective Experience (www.southerncollectiveexperience.com), a cooperative of writers, musicians and visual artists, which publishes the journal of culture The Blue Mountain Review and hosts the NPR show Dante’s Old South. He is on the faculty of The Company of Writers, and provides tutorials on poetry through the Noetic teaching application.