A Gathering of Poetry: August 2024

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry. I came upon this poem when I was reading some poetry earlier this month and was struck by how applicable it was. John's older brother, Jim, died from malignant melanoma in 1986 when he was 29 years old. I'm telling you this not to express sadness (even though it was tragically sad and drastically altered their family forever) but to say how often I've wished that my own sons could have known Jim. He was an independent thinker, very creative, able to make almost any part he needed when fixing an old truck or his motorcycle, artistic, and a kind soul. I used to think of Jim when Ryan would make complicated pencil drawings, and I see Jim reflected in Justin's deep interest in wildlife. Jim used to come in from mowing and get a drink from the kitchen faucet, and both of my boys do the same thing. I welcome poetry that makes me think about what we all have in common and what connects us, and this poem does. 

A Drink of Water

by Jeffrey Harrison

When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap

and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways

to drink directly from the stream of cool water,

I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone,

who used to do the same thing at that age;

 

And when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied,

wipes the water dripping from his cheek

with his shirtsleeve, it's the same casual gesture

my brother used to make; and I don't tell him

to use a glass, the way our father told my brother,

 

because I like remembering my brother

when he was young, decades before anything

went wrong, and I like the way my son

becomes a little more my brother for a moment

through this small habit born of a simple need,

 

which, natural and unprompted, ties them together

across the bounds of death, and across time . . .

as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds

and entered this one through the kitchen faucet,

my son and brother drinking the same water.

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Harrison, Jeffrey. "A Drink of Water". Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness & Connection, ed., James Crews, Green Writers Press, 2019. 

You can read more about the poet here. 

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