Papa
By Shawn Smith- June 12, 2007
I can only remember him as an old man
sitting at the kitchen table
smoking his pipe and drinking tea
in the old house up the lane.
He would send me off to the store
to fetch him an orange soda, his favourite,
and as a reward for my services
he would give me a handful of pennies -
he called them coppers.
He collected these coppers and placed them
in a big spoon which hung on the wall
and I never knew exactly where they came from
as he rarely left the house.
I would be so pleased to get them
as money was so scarce back then
and those coppers were spent satisfying
my own sweet tooth.
I don't remember much else about Papa
he lived his waning days alone
smoking his pipe, drinking his tea,
collecting coppers to pay me to fetch him orange soda.
Papa passed away 34 years ago
when I was only 9 years old
I was too young to understand
too young to even cry.
Now I cry because
the boy becomes a man
and the realization of what I have lost
sweeps over me in waves of sorrow.
The old house in which Papa lived is long gone
but the memory of those coppers and
the scent of his pipe lives on in my mind
and I think of him every time I have
a frosty orange soda on a hot summer's day.