I've wanted to say this for years.

The Deep and Heavy Work of Man

You never tried poems, Dad, you just drove truck 

You took some in, I’m sure--your claw strong hands

Folded in the congregation, thumbs hammered flat

And stubborn.  What would they have written had you

Spilled more ink than wine? 

About rubber, asphalt, engines, lightning reckless

On the highway?  Morning stars and TV snowstorms?

How you shifted your International with the grip of gods

Kissing the divine spans of Los Angeles, steering planets

Into their cosmetic lanes?

Still, I thank you for your mal-fitting, dirty jeans, Dad

Your Liberace photo, “To my friend, Tom…”  Your pencil

Stub with which you died, the board with your raw words

As your heart was throbbing out before you sprawled

Across the hood of your car

Driving it home to sell for 27 hundred dollars 
Through the windshield: You and your fingers

All I could wonder was what you'd have written

With your stubby pencil had you been given a wand

Of books and sense

Write on, Dad, about the way you held the wheel tight

What weighed you down, hauling your loads to bury far

How your thick hands gripped steel and wood and stone

In the sprawl of your austere life, waking early for the

Deep and heavy work of man