Tuesday
Seven years ago on this day my father died, and although we can’t complain because, at 90, he had lived a full and rich life, I’m sorry that he’s not around to share his love of poetry with my eight-year-old grandson. They have similar sensibilities and would have enjoyed each other very much.
I’ll be sharing this poem of his with Alban, which plays with the shape of the letter “C.” The word “garçon”—pronounced ɡär-sän– is how male waiters are addressed in French. My father often wrote poems about freewheeling rebellion against stodgy authority, which Alban would appreciate. The poem appears in The ABC of Radical Ecology:
C Was a G Who Grew Up To Be a c
C was G in G A R Ç O N
until he threw away his tray
and his napkin
shaved off his mustache and goatee
and told his boss a handsome Q
he was quitting the Café
he wanted to become
a free C
and stop sycophantically serving
the C-lect
he wasn’t proud he said
he didn’t want to be C-lebrity or anything like that
he just wanted to cease his servility
and see the world
All right said the Q
who had a fine handlebar mustache himself
albeit a bit askew
if you want to lose all your C-curity
and go to seed
that’s your cup of C
but don’t come crawling back to me
for your C-rations see
but C didn’t care
he was carefree as a Clam
as he danced like an S at the beginning of Spring
as he lay on his back and kicked up his heels like a U
climbed a pole like a P
slid down it like a B
turned cartwheels like a C R O C
took a boat ride like a J
and generally receded gracefully into all four of his seasons
until finally
when he had totally succeeded in seceding from Café Society
he had become so small
so very small
that he could crawl through an o hole
into a cave
as deep as a c-shell
as silent as an ear
listen
you can hear
the c