tête-à-tête

tête-à-tête

of teeth and foreheads

angles and sweaters

you and me

you and me

patterned and big-eyed

teeth and foreheads

smiles and hands

big eyed and patterned

looking forward

smiles and hands

tilting side

looking forward

held and holding

tilting side

to melded minds

held and holding

angel warmth

mind of god

you and me

Sharon Bridgforth has a blessing card that reads (among other beautiful words) “you are your father’s nextnow.” This birthday season and father’s day which conveniently come right on each other’s heels I have been wrestling with that. What does it mean for me to be my father’s “nextnow”? What does it mean to be present with him and not anxiously wondering what would make him proud, or worse what would prove to other people that I am a good enough daughter to him. All of those things get blurred together for me, especially around this time. For a long time I have been deep in the father/daughter mind meld in this picture. My father and I are both Geminis. Twins of spirit born on consecutive days. As my father studied his astrology he taught me mine. As a child I wanted to be a lawyer like him, until he quit and decided he wanted to be a poet like me. What have I been doing this whole time? Have I been leading or following?

Just this week I noticed something very obvious. My father’s poetry writing practice in his later work was prompted by photographs. Earlier in his work he wrote inspired by individuals or groups of people conceptually, but in the last decade or so of his life he would wrote poems in conversation with one particular picture at a time. Of course that’s what I’m doing now, but as usual it takes me a while to find and acknowledge when what seems like my individual good idea is already as it has ever been collective, old, given. Maybe being present to my ongoing collaboration with my father is hard because it means being present to how exactly I miss him right now today. What I wish I could say to him right now this particular morning. No. I haven’t deleted his number out of my phone. Yes. The cellular provider reclaimed and repurposed the phone number years ago.

What I also know (and gratitude to Laura Mvula’s new song “what matters”) is that when I am present in this moment, my father is here with me, as me. I am here as more than me. More than us. Sometimes that scares me even more. But the only Juneteenth Solstice Father’s Day present worth giving or having is the present itself. This moment. My gift to my father also known as the whole universe is to be here. Forever. For us.

Join us for our Queer Black Feminist Father’s Day Sunday Service tomorrow (Sunday June 20, 2021) at 11 am Eastern at mobilehomecoming.org/live

P.S. What is your child helping you learn ? Inner Child Summer School is in session! Sign up here.

P.P.S. My every day writing practice shapes my days into vessels for generations of love. If you want support with your own daily creative practice, I’d love to be part of your journey. Videos, poem prompts, meditations and more are here for you in the Stardust and Salt Daily Creative Practice Intensive.