My father's diary

How excited am I that the holiday season is finally over? Quite. 

It's not that I'm a scrooge, a grinch or a hater of the holidays in general. The relief simply stems from the fact that nothing is quite as depressing as spending the holidays alone. And so I did.  Crying alone underneath the Christmas tree after working all day just doesn't say Merry Christmas to me.

I'm not attempting to garner sympathy, just sharing the facts. I'm relieved the holidays are over, and I'm looking forward to whatever 2009 throws at me. I feel like it is going to be a fantastic year.

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MY FATHER'S DIARY

by Sharon Olds

When I sit on the bed, and spring the brass

scarab legs of its locks, inside

is the stacked, shy wealth of his print.

He could not write in script, so the pages

are sturdy with the beamwork of printedness,

WENT TO LOOK AT A CAR, DAD IN A

GOOD MOOD AT DINNER, LUNCH WITH MOM,

TRIED OUT SOME RACQUETS--a life of ease,

except when he spun his father's DeSoto on the 

ice, and a young tree whirled up

to the hood, throwing up her arms--until

LOIS. PLAYED TENNIS WITH LOIS, LUNCH

WITH MOM AND LOIS, DRIVING WITH LOIS,

LONG DRIVE WITH LOIS. And the,

LOIS! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! SHE IS SO

GOOD, SO SWEET, SO GENEROUS, I HAVE

NEVER, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE

TO DESERVE SUCH A GIRL? Between the tines

of his W's, and liquid on the serifs, moonlight,

the self of the grown boy pouring

out, kneeling in pine-needle weave,

worshiping her. It was my father

good, it was my father grateful,

it was my father dead, who had left me

these small structures of his young brain--

he wanted me to know him, he wanted

someone to know him.