DPF / Schnackenberg

From her signature poem. And, fathers and daughters.

from Supernatural Love / by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

                        My father puzzles why
It is my habit to identify
Carnations as “Christ’s flowers,” knowing I

Can give no explanation but “Because.”

DPF / Greger

Brothers and sisters. And, snow.

from Wind Wrapped in Snow / by Debora Greger

    Snowflake, you’re out
with no coat. Listen. Stand still.
    No one is calling
across a world half-buried in snow,
     Come back, you hear me,
Come back this instant, you forgot

DPF / Merrill

from The Book of Ephraim / by James Merrill

Yet even the most fragmentary message —
Twice as entertaining, twice as wise
As either of its mediums — enthralled them.

DPF / Blanco

From one of the snowbirds — as a child, I spent more than a few snowy, Ohio days on the beaches of Florida, building castles to the tune of cheerful (or so it seemed) grandparents, parents, tourists.

from Looking for the Gulf Motel / by Richard Blanco

I want to find The Gulf Motel exactly as it was
and pretend for a moment, nothing lost is lost.

DPF / Pereira

For poets, Sinatra, Sundays, 1963, The Central Valley, and poetry, from the marvelous mind of Mr. Sam Pereira.

from Swagger with Microphone, 1963 / by Sam Pereira

He’d briefly say

Something like, This is
A marvelous song
From the mind of
Mr. Sam Pereira,
Arranged by

Nelson Riddle.

DPF / Longfellow

Henri to Henry. My 86-year-old father-in-law can recite the first stanza of this poem from memory, a stanza he learned to recite in 5th or 6th grade, around 1938. So today, a memory in celebration of memory and in celebration, a Happy Birthday, to his forever-lovely bride.

from A Psalm of Life / by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;

DPF / Kumin

Mothers and daughters. Thank you for all you leave behind for us.  Today, visiting with Mother? And, Anne, who always needed you.

from Where I Live / by Maxine Kumin

Violets,

landlocked seas I swim in.
I used to pick bouquets

for her, framed them
with leaves. Schmutzige

she said, holding me close
to scrub my streaky face.

DPF / Cole

from Snow Moon Flower / by Henri Cole

as if the dark tops of the trees shone complacently
and a changing light filtered and breathed
against the lonely surface of everything.

DPF / Randall

Mothers and daughters.

from Momentum / by Cherri Randall

I’m filled with wonder for the things I know
that defy verse, that fill my daughter’s gaze.

DPF / Davis

Mothers and daughters. from Mother, / by Nicelle Davis

    Through you I am born
again, again, again. In a gathering of light.