By: Albert Huffstickler

Poetic Outlaws

Dec 23, 2024

My father carried a poem with
him all through his internment
in Cabanatuan prison camp in
the Philippines, carried it
with him for four years, showed
it to me one day folded and
refolded, print blurred, coming
apart. I, in my teens, not
thinking, nodded and went on
and forgot. Years later, I
tried to recall what poem it
was, even a single line of it
but it was gone. The years
go by, my mother’s dead this
long time. There’s no one to
ask. So I ponder it. And
ponder motivations, what drives
us, ponder what drives me still
to write with the same intensity
after all these years. And ponder
the lost poem. Perhaps that’s
part of it: I’m driven to create
that poem I can’t recall, the
poem that carried him through
four years of Hell and home
again. Or perhaps I’m driven
to write a poem that will serve
someone else as well. It’s a
nice thought anyway: my poem
in someone’s pocket, bent and
faded, nourishing him, healing
him through his own private
Hell. A man could do worse
with his life. I evoke my
father’s image, our eyes meet,
he nods in agreement, starts
to speak then turns and walks
off into the distance, bearing
the lost poem with him.