PAUL MOOREHEAD

Dads and Giants: An Apologia

Morning silvers the pools
of this boggy reach alongside the highway
and stones larger than a man could shift
are strewn among them,
like the crusts of peanut butter toast
strewn across the morning
of our kitchen floor.

The crusts, I know by what
tantrum they got there.
But the stones? Well,
I know that too:
a glacier dropped them there,
carelessly. A mountain
of ice so patient it eats
mountains knows more magic
than any tall tale you’ll ever hear.
Yet I imagine giants
playing blocks with boulders,
neglecting to tidy up after,
rainwater collecting in their footprints.

Which is all to say — why?
Disorder on the scale of a landscape
is the landscape. I’d love
a giant or a glacier in equal measure.
So little that would be
next to how I love you.
Why, then, my fury over crusts?

And all of that is to say…
I had something else in mind.
I thought I’d put you on my shoulders,
stand tall, lift you
far above the fogs that contain us,
show you off among your bright kin
strewn across the sky.