Catherine Chandler

A Thing Significant

I put it down as kitsch so many times—
his Just Folks sitting on the study shelf.
The sermonizing, those (God help me!) rhymes
scorned by my hoity-toity, younger self.
I gleefully pooh-poohed each poem, and took
great pleasure in my critic’s role. In haste,
I set no store by father’s go-to book,
disparaging his literary “taste.”
 
The room is bare now, and I pull the tome
out of a box marked for the Sally Ann.
It opens on a dog-eared page, where “Home”
bears witness to the merit of a man
gone from my world with words left unexpressed,
penned perfectly by Edgar Albert Guest.

Catherine Chandler is the author of six books of poetry, including Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011), shortlisted for the Poets’ Prize, and The Frangible Hour (University of Evansville Press), winner of the 2016 Richard Wilbur Award. She also won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award in 2010, as well as being among the finalists over a dozen times. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on nine occasions.  Her latest book, Annals of the Dear Unknown (Kelsay Books, 2022), a creative historical verse-tale, has just been released.  More information is available on her poetry blog, The Wonderful Boat.