By Jennifer Hunt, a poem written for my dad, from the archives
Was I four or five or seven?
Years have blurred my sense of time
Seems like yesterday Dad caught me
Running through the birch and pine
Little daughter in a sun dress
Parting smooth wind with her face
Sprinting harder, getting farther,
Leaving grass clips in her wake
Giggles spilling from inside me
Doing hopscotch over rocks
Clearing grass and reaching road dirt
Like a robber from the cops
Had good reason to be missing
And it wasn’t to escape
But to find the glee of knowing
That a dad would win the chase
Seems like yesterday he caught me
I take three steps to his one
And just now I can’t remember
When my running had begun
Or just when it will be over
But this smile squints my eyes
Because I know if I were missing
He’d be . . .
. . .on his way to find