the country life {part 1}

los dias de mi padre

Father
He was a child once.
A kid baseball player of bone and dirt.
Grown to be satisfied with a meal a day.
It was the country; a village of no electricity, no running water to
clean sweat.
But a river ran through for the folk-story-believing mothers to hand wash;
a river there to entertain the poverty.

Being born to the 1954 of such a place is a reality of few.

Father
didn't stand a chance;
the oldest of the boys in family of nine
means the first male born is crowned a man
by default.
It breaks you hard but makes you, as day by day, you
realize that it's another day of reckless youth.
Those family things keep you awake;
those ties to your blood
are the promises that kept you awake from dream;
Fighting your way through makes the Darwinism philosophy.

One of the most over-told memory;
spoken of at the dining table, over wine with my Father,
is that of academics.
Drinking to seventeen percent alcohol at present day tables,
it takes cheap Trader Joe's wine then,
Father's
confessions begin;

Father
never made it past sixth grade
after a few years of tries,
attempts to pass,
he was done.
failure is sour in a mouth of a man carrying our last name.

Grandmother tried to fix the "mess",
as ordered by Grandfather.
Bribery the best tool of a country woman.
Morning came she made it to the school house;
with a chicken from Grandfather's brick and cement barn.
It was a clucking poultry for diploma offer.
The Professor's answer is a mystery of memory.
Father to this day, does not know if he even got his sixth grade diploma.