It was 1963 or 4, summer, <br />and my father was driving our family <br />from Ft. Hood to North Carolina in our 56 Buick. <br />We'd been hearing about Klan attacks, and we knew <br /> <br />Mississippi to be more dangerous than usual. <br />Dark lay hanging from the trees the way moss did, <br />and when it moaned light against the windows <br />that night, my father pulled off the road to sleep. <br /> <br /> Noises <br />that usually woke me from rest afraid of monsters <br />kept my father awake that night, too, <br />and I lay in the quiet noticing him listen, learning <br />that he might not be able always to protect us <br /> <br />from everything and the creatures besides; <br />perhaps not even from the fury suddenly loud <br />through my body about his trip from Texas <br />to settle us home before he would go away <br /> <br />to a place no place in the world <br />he named Viet Nam. A boy needs a father <br />with him, I kept thinking, fixed against noise <br />from the dark.<br /><br />Forrest Hamer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lesson/
