And He Shall Dance Again: A Poem for my Father by Bev Hamel

In Loving Memory
William Augustus Alderfer
July 1, 1921
February 17, 2012

And He Shall Dance Again

My father and I were connected by a long distance cord

of a slim white paper cigarette,

A nasty habit that oddly comforted me

as once a month arrived,

a slim white envelope

bearing his handwriting,

tidy, neat and even strokes

like ripples on a pond

mailed from Pennsylvania

to Carolina, where cigarettes

were half the price.

I fed his addiction,

a ruse to keep his letters

binding him to me.

Pictures in my mind,

scatter in slow motion through

a kaleidoscope of colors, where

I see him young with hair

untouched by grey,

tall and strong,

my anchor in the wind.

I am a little girl again -

Take me for a ride daddy,

and he lifts me up into the air

high above his head

I will never let you fall, he says,

higher still he thrusts me to the sky

Now just reach for any star,

they’re all yours,

then taught me how to make them mine.

I went away to gather tiles

to build the mosaic of my life,

minutes vanished into days

years withered into air,

I did not see him bent and weak,

nor slowly drift away.

He will always be my hero

connected now by a long distance cord

of billowy clouds drifting in the daytime sky

and when the evening sky turns dark

we will dance upon the stars that he made mine.