Art by Saralee Howard
The pastor had asked me if I wanted to say anything at the service. I didn’t guess that there would be anyone there who would say something. I told him that if it was okay, I would write a poem. Before I read the poem, I said a few things. I mentioned that my dad was a good man and a hard worker. I said that he must have been a man of faith because he believed in the Detroit Tigers every year, no matter if they fell apart after the All Stars game or not. That got a few laughs. It wasn’t long before I ran out of things to say. “I wish I would have known him better,” I said. It got a few puzzled looks, but it was true. Then, I smoothed a piece of paper on the podium and began to read:
Heart Attack
My father, on his knees
in the basement, crouching
along the cinderblocks,
his mind on spring run-off
and heavy April rains,
the way brick can eventually
become compromised,
letting the dampness in
to wear at everything.
He cemented the leaks,
forcing the water down
into the weeping tiles.
He knew a little something
about loving a foundation.
I was upstairs lying prone
with a book, thinking myself
so much smarter than him.
I hardly knew anything.
Only now do I feel
in his unexpected dying
just how much he had
to teach me about living.
I’m not sure how the poem went over. A few people were smiling at me when I looked up. There were words that weren’t very poetic, like “compromised.” It was his word, though, and I wanted it in there. Afterwards, when people were coming through a line to greet me, Vance stopped and told me how much he liked the poem. “I could see him down there in that basement,” he said. “And I really liked the part about him knowing how to love a foundation.” He looked at me. “It was more than just loving the foundation of a house, wasn’t it, that he was good at? ”
by Jeffrey Vande Zande
Jeffrey Vande Zande is a professor of English at Delta College. The above is from his award-winning 2012 Michigan Notable Book “American Poet”. The book is a sensitive examination of Denver, a young poet, who graduates from college and unable to find a job returns home to live with his dad in Saginaw Michigan. Denver discovers the Theodore Roethke house in his own hometown and sets out to save the home of this Pulitzer and National Book award-winning poet. It’s just possible through this quest that Denver will find his own poetic voice. When Denver’s dad dies he uses a poem he has written as part of a euology for his father. Vande Zande has written several novels and collections of poetry. Read more about the real life Roethke House here which by the way Vande Zande is actively involved in its resurrection.
The above art is by Lansing area artist and writer Saralee Howard. Titled “Assemblage” I thought it expressed the emotions Denver was trying to make in his eulogy about his father’s life
