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"Elegy, Father's Day"

By Kevin YoungPosted Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007, at 7:22 AM ET

Click here to listen to Kevin Young read this poem.


From above, baseball diamonds look
even more beautiful, the pitcher's mound

a bright cataract.
The river wavers

its own way—see
where once it snaked.

Shine me like a light.

Ladies & Gentlemen, we are flying
just above turbulence.

The roads like centipedes,
their flailing feet.

How many, thousands,
to fall.

Below, parcels & acres blur
like family plots.

100 knots.

Cities bright
in the blinding dawn.

We make good time—

roads like scars
in the green—

grids of an earth
too soon we'll meet.

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Kevin Young is the author of five books of poetry, including For the Confederate Dead, winner of the Quill Award in Poetry.
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