Groundhog Day
Forty-seven years ago, we laid my Father
in a frozen Groundhog Day plot.
It would have been fun to only care
about the folly of a rodent shadow.
Instead, we buried
his rags to riches,
life-of-the party,
addicted, family shattering
short life.
Forty-seven years later,
on the date he was buried,
I hold my new grandson.
Warm, swaddling clothes
displace frozen ground.
My years now way beyond his
who never saw my wedding,
or any grandchild.
The Groundhog’s shadow is dark,
the tiny boy in my arms
brightens the day.
Little boy, little boy—
Will you see the sunlight of a long, healthy life
or the shadows of that brief buried one?
Much more than desolate winters,
may bright Springs guide your days.
Vern Fein
A retired special education
teacher, Vern Fein has published over two hundred poems on over eighty sites, a
few being: *82 Review, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Courtship of Winds,
Young Raven's Review, Ariel Chart, Monterey Poetry Review, and Corvus Review.
Recently his first book of poetry--I WAS YOUNG AND THOUGHT IT WOULD CHANGE--was
released by Cyberwit Press.
This is magnificent.
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