Glenn G. Coats

Long Since

I never heard my father sing as he swept dust from the garage or polished the powder blue of his car. There were no songs trailing from the tractor while my father mowed rectangle upon rectangle in the lawn. On long drives down to the shore, he never sang along when Big Dan Ingram played the top forty. I never heard a lullaby as my father rocked the latest grandchild to sleep.

I never heard my father sing until he was ninety-six years old and the year was coming to an end. There were pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. Doors opened and closed. In the dining room, his granddaughter was singing with her daughters. As they sang Auld Lang Syne, my father moved his chair right beside them. He remembered the words and his lips began to move. His voice rose like the creak in wooden steps. Just as the song ended, my father reached for something across the table. “Did you hear me?” he asked.

all the rivers
run down his face
mother's passing

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About the Author

Glenn G. Coats lives with his wife, Joani, in Carolina Shores, North Carolina. His books include two Snapshot Press collections of haibun, A Synonym for Gone (2021) and Degrees of Acquaintance (2019); Furrows of Snow (Turtle Light Press, 2019), an honorable mention winner in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards; and Another Lost Boat (Pineola Publishing, 2022).

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