Today the Writer's Digest prompt is "Farewell." I've decided I'm not going anywhere, though; I'm going to try to keep going with daily poems for another month. I'll be away this weekend, though, so my posting might be erratic.
"Farewell" is hard. There are places too sad to go, and I can't come up with a good "good riddance" sort of "farewell" poem. I just waited until an image came into my head and then went with it.
June Before Appalachian State
The kid on the raft
stirs the river with his stick, a trick
he learned from Huck Finn
in the movies. Already his shoulders
are pinking from the sun. Already
his mother has left the pushoff point
to start the Subaru. His dad watches
as the figure, straining to look downstream,
grows smaller and older. So many
adventures to come that summer, and
so many warnings of pain. He squints
at that last sight of his son, and the hat
the kid brushed off, brusquely,
is knotted and damp in his big hands.
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