A poem for a Monday morning.

I was doing the iTunes thing again and making my way through the buildup of podcasts I have subscribed to.

One of the things I have been enjoying is Garrison Keilor’s - The Writer’s Almanac. It’s something I enjoy when I catch it but, I am not quite sure when it is broadcast (turns out it is broadcast locally on WNYC-FM, 93.9 every weekday at 8:00 PM. If you want to find out when the show is broadcast in your area, look here.

The poem is also featured in Keilor’s book - Good Poems for Hard Times.

I thought I would pass the poem along “My Father Gets Up in the Middle of the Night to Watch an Old Movie” by Dennis Trudell from Marquees of Buffalo.

My Father Gets Up in the Middle of the Night to Watch an Old Movie.

On cable television. Because he can’t sleep.
My father gets up in the middle of the night
to watch an old movie on cable television—
because he can’t sleep. He has done this before.
He will do it again, and sometimes he eats
cookies. My father eating cookies and watching
an old movie again because he can’t sleep.
He is eighty-seven years old. He lives alone.
Because my mother died… and sometimes he looks
at her absence on the black sofa. My father
turning back to the movie on cable television,
eating another cookie. The movie has a name,
but he doesn’t know it. My mother died—
because this is not a movie with a happy
ending. Or any ending. My father returns
to bed and goes to sleep. Or does not,
and then later sleeps. The television reflects
the lamp he leaves on… the black sofa.
Reflects an old mirror behind the sofa—