A Poem for Father's Day

With Father’s Day coming up I wrote a poem based on a special memory I have of arriving late one foggy night at the train station in Salisbury NC.  I was eight years old and my father had moved up to North Carolina six months ahead of Mom and I coming from our home in Mississippi.  He came to take a new job and to “prepare a place for us.”  When we arrived I stood at the steps of the train looking into the fog only to see the shadowy figure of a person standing beneath a lamp post.  The poem tells the story of what happened next.

Waiting Arms

(a poem for Father’s Day)

I looked into the fog

of unknowing

My mother’s hand holding

mine to keep

my heart from

leading me

In the dark there was

but one light

radiant but limited

in its vision

of the figure

below

Was it him, the one who

went before us

to prepare a place

But then it could be

some stranger

filled with harm

not care

Breaking away from her

grasp of me

I ran toward the

light

filled with both

fear and hope

Pleas came from my frightened

mother bidding me

to stop my

foolish journey

And I did

and an empty pause

left me alone

Then I looked toward

the shadowy light

And a distant figure

spread his arms

awaiting a child

of the night

I ran toward those

open arms

to be held with love

no longer distant

Waiting arms told

me this

was no stranger

I was in the embrace

of my father

Jody Seymour

2018