THE POEM

“Married five times, the father of five children. I was the only child to grow up with him, but he wrote poems about us all.”

I cannot separate my father from the poet. In my earliest memories, under canopies of trees during walks in the woods, at readings in bookstores and cafes, I’m on his back in a green canvas carrier, feeling the vibration of his voice, the words, his poems, my head on his shoulder, falling asleep as he recites.

Later, old enough to swim with him at the university pool. My father in his lane, I in mine, one stroke, then another. One day, at one end of the pool, I sense him stopping. Head out of water, bathing cap, goggles: “Lifeguard, lifeguard. Pen and paper, I need pen and paper.” The ending of a poem has come.

Sometimes I resented the poems, stealing his attention. “Just you and me, Dad. Just you and me. Can’t you leave the poems at home?” But he couldn't. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he could not not be a poet.

Of course he was many other things too. A German, Russian, Jew. The son of a beauty queen who died when he was 15, leaving him alone with his father, a podiatrist who retired to the basement to study esoteric spiritual orders while my father found solace in Whitman and Frost. At 17, during the Korean War, he joined the Navy. He became his ship’s librarian. His shipmates asked him to write love poems to send to their women, which he did, as he did with his own women. Even back then, there were many.

Married five times, the father of five children. I was child number four and my mother was marriage number three and they divorced when I was 2. I was the only child to grow up with him, but he wrote poems about us all. A spiritual seeker, he followed gurus to India. When I was 15, we moved all the way from Toronto to the Santa Cruz Mountains to live in a commune. All day chanting om and working in the kitchen, peeling avocados for good karma. His father had always said the soul is in the foot. He wrote poems about feet, said by Robert Bly to be among his best.

Over the years, in between grants, fellowships, journalism gigs and teaching at universities, he took odd jobs. Once, he was a Christmas Santa; other times, Mr. Taste Test for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. But always he was writing poetry. At 45, his tenth book: Half a Life’s History. At 80, his twentieth: All That I Have Not Made. At 82, he became Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz. Teaching writing at the county jail, the senior center, the synagogue.

During his last days, during hospice, we set up his bed in the living room facing the garden, the wildflowers in bloom. As he slipped in and out of consciousness, the family gathered by his side, each reciting to him our favorite of his poems. He at times whispered a word, a line—the words being equal, as they had been his whole life, to the air he breathed. I chose “Hannah,” the first poem he wrote about me, when I was 2. It is the poem I always come back to and when I do, I hear my father’s voice reciting the words, see the look in his eyes, and I feel, just as he always told me, that he is always with me and I with him.

—Hannah Sward

With my father, Robert Sward, on his Raleigh bicycle. Victoria, BC, 1975.

---

Hannah Sward is the award-winning author of Strip: A Memoir. Her most recent work can be read in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times (Tiny Love Stories), HuffPost and The Rumpus (Voices on Addiction).

To learn more about Robert Sward, read this appreciation.

---

For a different reading experience, The Keepthings’ stories can also be read in their entirety on Instagram @TheKeepthings.

Have a story to share? See the complete submission guidelines, including photo guidelines, at TheKeepthings.com.

---

---