![]() Reading them, I also recall my father writing them. I have memories of these poems beyond the events they contain. The poems about his painful childhood and my idyllic one are mixed together, their ragged notebook edges entangled. Whenever I reach inside and pull out a poem at random, my father’s past and presence fill the room. I feel the tension in my arms when I lift the suitcase I feel the weight of my father’s devotion. I have hauled these poems to Colorado, back to Idaho, then to Oregon. They removed stacks of poems and placed the suitcase back on the scale it until it was the exactly correct amount. My parents are frugal people I was leaving by plane, so they made sure it did not exceed the weight limit allowed for a free checked bag. I estimate there are over 4,000 in that suitcase, but he’s written many more. ![]() Fifty pounds of poems, to be exact, most of them handwritten on loose-leaf paper, the only existing copies. A few years ago, at my request, my father gave me a suitcase full of poems. ![]()
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