Last Big Show

Hi everyone! We're finally in the dog days of summer -- hope everyone is holding up. I'm posting an alternate version of an old poem in honor of my dad being gone for five years today. The time passes ever so quickly even as it seems just yesterday while I was struggling through the worst of it.

Last Big Show

I don’t know if my father was afraid
when he died, if he could see ahead
or if he slept well the night before, happy
to be back after a long business trip,
writing on the dry erase board that Wednesday
morning he left forever -- “Last big show!
Glad to be home, finally.” He’d flown
in an air show for two weeks without
incident, only to fly into a power line
in the town he’d lived his entire adult
life. I found the notes for his work
report about his last two weeks, most
of them too technical to mean anything
to me, but he ended them simply in his small
handwriting, nothing like the big handsome
man he was, but part of him too -- “I am sure
I am leaving many things out, important things.”

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Stripping toughened my hide, but exposing myself as a writer has been a lot more brutal." Diablo Cody

Cocktail Hour
Working on new drink recipes!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy birthday to Billy Bob Thornton! (I know it's President Obama's birthday as well, but I figure he probably has lots of people wishing him a happy birthday, but I'm not as sure with the lead singer of the Boxcutters.)