Between Belbedere and Clyed
The last days of his youth
Were coming to an end
He was born into a world of
hard labor
The plow, the axe, and the crosscut
saw
Were the tools by which
His family carved out a living
They migrated wherever
The next income could be made
From
The North Florida farmlands of
Hilliard
To the snake-infested
waterways
Of the Okefenokee Swamp
Cutting timber and growing
crops
Were their way of life
Yet
Life was also lived
On the mean streets of North
Jacksonville
Riverview
Was where you went
When all other options were gone
His father grew up on these
Same streets delivering
turpentine
From the forest surrounding
the city
At the age of 14 in 1906
He would gear up mules
And make the journey alone
On a wagon
His overalls stained with
sticky pinesap
With tobacco
With sweat
With dirt!
Now his son
Was following his father’s
footsteps
Yet
Work was not all that thrived
in Riverview!
On the north side
When the sun went down
With his hair slicked back
And
His blue eyes sparkling in the
streetlights
This young man
Would slip into the night
With his brothers and friends
Going from honky tonks to juke
joints
Anywhere a good time could be
had!
Because
When you were a child of The
Great Depression
And
Had seen times so hard
Your parents boiled the seed
For planting that year’s crop
To feed your brothers and
sister
To feed you!
Any happiness even if through
recklessness
Was excepted
But
His way of living
On the edge of existences
Was drifting away
Drifting toward a domestic
life
Of a father
Of my father
And
On a Sunday afternoon in 1952
One last ride was taken
He and his Harley 74
With its
Suicide shift jutting upwards
Its 1200 CC motor winding out
The wind stinging his face
As he blasted through
Florida’s highway heat waves,
and humidity
He hit the Main Street Bridge
On the north side of the city
At 100mph
Crossing over
From one life to another
From Harleys to house
mortgages
From ‘42 Ford coupes
To station wagons
He would raise his kids
With only stories of the life
he left behind
But the promise
That our lives
Would be better than the one
he had lived!
The sun set on his wild ways
But rose every day for us
In the figure of our father!
Now
His 82-year-old hands wrinkled
and scared
Point here and there in the
horizon
Telling me stories
About the places and people
That once were alive!
Yet he can’t find any trace
Of the world that surrounded
his childhood
But the world he created for
us will live on
For generations to come
All made by a man who was born
into nothing
But was able to give us
everything
