The Gleeful Farm in Fog, Minter Bridge Road
Blind Cartography
As a child, my father crowns me navigator
on the sailboat where we live while he is dying.
On the night we cannot see past the bow,
I summon the coast guard from below deck
by marine radio. I call direction up to my father
in the cockpit, the dangers of the passage
a list of coordinates, repeated back twice.
He delights at the slap of surf against the hull,
the salt spray drying on our fingers.
He loved to tell this story of his daughter
guiding him into port through the fog.
I move like an underwater argonaut,
headlamp shining in the darkness.
The main thing is to keep going,
I like to think he was trying to say.
_______________
Julie Shulman
Review by David A. Goodrum
What we best learn from our parents is what they do, not what they say. Give confidence by assigning duty. Show praise by staying silent in the moment. And also later including each other in myth-making through storytelling. This poem is both a heartfelt remembrance of a father and child bonding experience as well as a sign of how we unknowingly guide each other through life and death and grieving.