"Quintessential moment with my father", Long Island Poem for Father's Day Sunday

"Pear" by Yvonne Dagger

"The pluck, the toss, the catch, the drop"; no, the poem we have chosen for this Father's Day Sunday is not about baseball. It is no about pears, either, though we have picked a still life "Pear" by Yvonne Dagger to accompany it. Read on...

September
Barbara Novack

The pear tree in the neighbor's backyard
drops its crop on the driveway
with hard thumps
like baseballs hitting a mitt.
But the pears roll, uncaught.

Once my father climbed to the top of the garage
where the pear tree branches stretch over the peak
and perched there, straddling it, plucking pears
and tossing them down to me. I
caught each neatly,
brown-green balls of sweetness, small and firm,
slapping into my cupped palms
and deposited in a large paper bag at my feet.
The pluck, the toss, the catch, the drop:
we had a good rhythm that sunny September afternoon.
And when the bag was finally full and the game ended,
my father lit his pipe, set it at a jaunty angle,
and sat secure and serene
up high against the bluest sky.

The pear tree in the neighbor's backyard
drops its crop on the driveway
with hard thumps:
the pears roll, uncaught.

I stand at the kitchen window
and stare out at the branches
so high against
the emptiest sky.

"September" by Barbara Novack, Writer-in-Residence at Molloy College.
This award winning (First Place Poetry Honors) poem was first published by Nassau Review and it is reprinted here after www.barbaranovack.com, with author's permission.
Copyright (c) Barbara Novack.

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