Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Wed scatter at our fathers thunder bark:
Stop that bleating. Go to your lairs. There,
if wayward radio squawked back with rock,
wed hear his awful bellow from the stair,
Turn down that confounded caterwaul!
We felt the rain of his staccato words,
Dagnabbit. What unmitigated gall.
Up and at em! Stir your stumps, sluggards.

Wed bask, though, in his smile like applause
when, tender under bluster, hed exhort,
Brush your snaps. Wash your dirty paws.
Sleep tight. Tribe, hold down the fort.
His icy stare was like an April blast,
a fearsome squall that wouldnt last.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

In a time of increasing disaffiliation from and disillusionment with the institutional church, a new theological perspective on the church is needed—one that places Jesus’ own teaching at the center.
Roger Haight, S.J.June 20, 2025
This week on “Jesuitical,” Zac and Ashley are thrilled to speak with their friend and colleague Father James Martin about his new podcast, “The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.”
JesuiticalJune 20, 2025
Pope Leo XIV is seen in a video interview with RAI Uno on June 19 at Vatican Radio’s transmission center at Santa Maria di Galeria outside of Rome, where he had made an impromptu visit. (CNS photo/screengrab from RAI Uno video)
Pope Leo XIV renewed his “appeal for peace” in an interview after a surprise visit to the Vatican Radio Center.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 20, 2025
There are so many things you can enjoy when you are poor—and some, it seems, that are easier to enjoy when you’re poor because you cannot lean on the crutches and the shortcuts that litter the path of the rich.
Simcha FisherJune 20, 2025