I was recently reading some of my father’s poems that were published in a collection called Putty. And today I found a video on YouTube of Keith reading from this book in 1975. I happen to own the copy that he dedicated to his parents-in-law, Hannah and Lloyd Hansen, in 1971, the year we were living in Bellingham, Washington not far from Tacoma.
Keith Recollections from his Daughter I am unable to remember when I met my father. He told me he recalled the moment even though The nurse thrust a substance upon his person To keep him (well mustached at 23 years of age) from fainting And falling on the hospital floor in a heap. He admitted he liked both: The baby and the intervention. It was a good day. I remember my father busy in the mornings writing something important. Then he’d come out of his lair for coffee. He was adored and admired for his charm and wit but he also drank coffee. He ground the beans first. It’s not a secret to making good coffee. When I was a young girl, my father…
We’ve been missing you The pews weren’t even half full – “My mother,” HR said to me her youthful words dancing forth from between her painted lips, “Finally saw the light.” I had been on the job one week and listened carefully about a series of step-fathers next to the office aquarium HR again, this time about an interviewee “It’s not that she is too old,” she explained as we stood in front of the dishwasher also seriously in need of an update It reminded me – the congregation trying their hardest to sing the tune, mouths stumbling across the words in the hymn book Here I am Lord My new boss strolled casually behind my chair “We’ve been missing you,” she murmured low…