Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

Mornings with Dad
by Carole Davis

Seventh Contest
First Place

Driving me to school
from elementary all the way through,
humming or singing
with diddles and dums
where words were unknown or forgotten,
Dad and I spent early mornings together.

I rode along with joyful songs,
smelly pipes and cigars,
and his continually cheerful outlook,
bumping over railroad tracks in a white, 
then later red station wagon,
until our Volkswagen "bug" came along
and like a washing machine,
tossed us around from street to street
toward the junior high.

Never cross, always pleasant,
Dad sometimes missed his turn, 
for his merry song was too intense
to keep his mind merely on his destination.
I recall fondly how we laughed together 
when he missed the high school driveway,
pulling instead into the lot across the street
where he had worked.
We had many mornings together he and I,
and even on Sunday drives to church
we bonded over old, silly songs.

Each loved by the other,
cuteness abounded and serenity pervaded
these sweet father and daughter moments, 
where the important things in life were revealed to me
in his day-to-day actions,
on short rides together
to school and to church.

Relaxed and himself with me,
his brand of entertainment was chosen 
to make me feel special,
always listening like what I said mattered. 
I felt his love for me every morning
wherever we were going,
and though he is no longer here -
on mornings now without him,
I still carry his love with me wherever I am,
and sing those same silly songs
with diddles and dums to my own kids.