Father's Day 2008

Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican poet, novelist, and playwright. He is the author of the novel, Benjamin, My Son and five poetry collections: Exodus and Other Poems, hurricane center, Florida Bound, xango music, and Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas. He has also written a book of short stories, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien; a play, Ogun's Last Stand, and a children's book, Grandpa Sydney's Anancy Stories.

Father Poem

Tonight when the moon forgives the darkness,
and peers through a curtain of leaves,

she will skitter down to the end of the block,
her laughter kissing the tops of blossoms

dozing on folded petals of bougainvilleas
whose thorns surrender to the night,

preferring to accept dew on their tips
and muse at the transparent world:

the breath of my children pressed against the pane,
waiting for the familiar grunt of my engine

turning up the driveway from the sodium dervish
of the highway and into bliss of their outstretched arms.

***
"Father Poem" is an excerpt from my next poetry collection, DUB WISE, which will be published by Peepal Tree Press in 2010.

Father's Day 2006