Simple Things

A love poem to dad.

The house I was born in had a picture window 
looking out across the Puget Sound
My earliest memories are gazing out that window from cradled arms
getting to know the Olympic mountain range by sight and by name
From that living room I saw my first snow fall
felt the power of my first storm
When the lightning arrived I jumped straight into your arms
knowing I would land safely. 

You were full of lessons and I was hungry for answers 
watching every angle of saw blade and screw driver
manifest wooden beauty before my very eyes
a bed and a table from nothing
dust one moment, furniture the next. 
Who was this magician who turned fantasy into real life?

Riding in the passenger side of your two seater truck
I was king
out on a grand mission to surveil our kingdom.
The people at the neighborhood True Value knew we were coming
Who else would receive a warm popcorn greeting
upon entering the store?
Nails and screws in hand, 
The world stretched out before us like a shimmering inland sea
under the warm August sun.

Did you know heartbreak then
behind the funny faces and noises
that would reliably make us roll giggling on the ground 
until we couldn’t breathe?
If you did I didn’t notice
protected from the shadows
by the tall Lego towers we built in front of that window
framed in relief by that sunset sea 
and those steady mountains. 

I miss those days when joy was easy
and laughter was a shoulder ride and a bop on the ceiling away
but our laughter couldn’t hold the world out forever. 
I grew up and you worked harder. 
We moved away from that house with the postcard view
across the lake to the edge of the woods
and the floating bridge sank behind us
hatches left open in a storm.
An understandable oversight
and yet, there is no going back.

How can I ever fill your shoes?
There is no other Fred Lee Hammerquist that I’ve met
that comes anywhere close.
We’ve had our own storms
Some that sunk bridges
And yet somehow we’ve stayed connected
even when you had to get out and swim
even when I had to learn how to receive you as you were
human and not without your own sharp edges.

It’s not too hard for me now to imagine a world without you 
and that breaks my heart
natural as it is for me to ask the big questions.
What makes knowing we will lose all of this bearable
is the joy you taught me to find in the simple things
that make life worth living.