a painting of my father

Here is a painting I did of my dad way back in 1972. I was living at the time with my friend and her boyfriend. It was over on Elliot avenue in south Minneapolis. I recall my parents coming by to see me, or perhaps give me some rent money. The apartment was only $100 a month, but I could not afford even that.

I recall my dad sitting in the dining room and the way the light hit his face. I was at that time influenced by the Fauves and wanted to add some emotional dimension to his face through color as well as show his finely developed features and natural intelligence.

As I recall I painted it in one session....but memory is fuzzy here and it could have been two sessions....

It has hung for years above my Dad's table just behind the kitchen door. I feel the painting has retained it's freshness and vitality. Like the painting of Dorian Grey, in a way it holds onto who my Dad was in his younger years and that vitality still comes through despite his gray hair and sometimes unsteady step and memory.

I will soon enclose two photos of the painting here. ( experiencing technical difficulities!!) One with my Dad peeking around the corner of the painting.

Remembering Dad's dear Friend John Macoubrie

John Macoubrie was a good, good friend of my Dad's. They spent many evenings sipping bourbon and reciting their favorite poets. They were each well read in their own way. My dad fit in his visits with John in between working at the railroad as a clerk for the Great Northern and teaching English at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Despite John's great intellect and formidable skills as a poet he worked menial jobs, often as a dishwasher. He published a few poems in his lifetime and died an untimely death of cancer, just a short while before my dad retired from both of his jobs. The irony was that he finally would have had more time to spend with John, but he was gone...and deeply missed.
I still remember the smell of John's pipe tobacco as he sat in our living room discoursing with Dad. Often he stayed so late that he missed the last bus home. We would come downstairs to find him sleeping on the couch, still wearing his inimical wool tweed coat.
John was like an uncle to the rest of the family. He was gentle and supportive of our inner gifts.
We miss him very much.
There are many, many stories of John from his Dinkytown days. That place just doesn't seem the same, now that he is gone....Tales of him biking down 14th avenue with a lit pipe in his pocket, billowing smoke as he rode by...

So, this piece of paper just appeared on the coffee table. I copy it out for you now.

Another good friend died of cancer: John Macoubrie. I wrote this for a memorial reading. But I read only his poems and poems he knew by memory.

Ladies and Gentlemen
It was not class or education--
and I'm not sentimental, blind, or senile--
There once lived people who had resolve,
Modesty, openness, and devotion;
Who did more than they promised and said less:
Soft-voiced, humorous ladies and gentlemen.
So you call them antique and obstinate?
Yes, I know their weaknesses.
They lectured for long moments and peddled
For short times the hysteria's of their day.
But they knew that honor and courage
Are the virtues that carry on after
Justice and reason are powerless.

James C. White

Hiking in the Cascades

1970

Each year I go to the Cascades to take young women
On botany hikes in organized tours of one-
A study of huge blossoms spreading from inner ovules,
Stamens with their pollen-sticky anthers standing
Big within the gaping pink orifice.
(Rated "PG" for poets, "X" for gardeners, "G" for O'K
But these women aren't nature-lovers at heart.
Some are wedded to senile astrology: they don't see
The Sun, Moon or Venus, or Mars but their instant of birth
That marks its influence; they chart their worth.
I, in the cold untuned sky, see the force that cast this
It guides me now. When a wind, not forecast,
Strips the Cascade boughs, we don't freeze. That same storm
Piles leaves and blossoms that keep us sane and warm.

1980

A decade ago, I had courage in mountain passes.
But I surrendered it in exchange for watchfulness
And woodland instincts: I circle, wary and slow,
What women in the center hide, reveal and know.
I look down, half hoping some tigers of ambition
Will turn into butter at the bottom of my tree.
It doesn't happen because they have skill and good sense.
They have gathered solar heat and starlight to burn.
They are ripe with assurance. It's their turn.

1988

Half way up the slope, we sit and read.
We nod over our book, whose fingers keep
Its single place as we sift down to sleep,
Marking the number and place of passion.

Petals on Winter Water

Do I brag when I say I'm mad?
I do when I call myself "a wild poet."
Sing, clatterbones of steel as my fingers dance
And my dollars slouch towards bandruptcy.
Critics say little, and friends say "Interesting"
But you nod with joy at my tacky pentameters.
I no longer rush out to read to strangers
Or join my fellow crackpots who collect rejection slips
From The New Yorker. Typing alone.
I hear your laughter as my pages hit the floor-
Like a Chinese poet who shook a branch
A thousand years ago and shouted downstream,
"Each petal is a poem!" But never in winter.
I am the shaking, dancing poet for this season.
Another Chinese poet withdrew from the battle,
His nicked and bloody sword left outside:
Within, he composed calm verses.
The wind now howls about my eaves:
General Winter assaults me on all sides
While I sit in my library with old books-
Portable moons glowing with unearthly light-
And my poems on the cold floor,
Resting like petals on winter water.