Here’s a sensitive poem by Bruce that depicts a slice of life, in Different Truths. The poet presents a slice of life, where a father watches a daughter with pride, with his five-year- old son. It explores human emotions, beautifully.

I have stumbled on
A smiling dad
Stands tall behind a treadmill
And his five year old
His daughter on the treadmill
Jogging happily below his sought sweet approval
Beaming as she learns her first bad habit.
“Watch this,” Dad says as he speeds treadmill up
Then slows — speeds up again with rapid changes
As he sprints, then walks and loses balance as the pace is changed
But she regains without a stumble and keeping up with pride.
Dad is delighted, proud of what she’s learned.

I want her off of that machine
Onto the grass and trees
Let her feel free
Wind in hair un-fan blown
Sun—no artificial lights.

And please God . . . Father
Without cell phone
Just one early moment in this life
Beyond the call of electricity and metal
No addictions
Only time in motion
Without goals, logged minutes—distance charted
Hours spent on treadmills
Let her find that for herself
Or not.

©Bruce Louis Dodson

Picture from the internet.

Bruce Louis Dodson

Bruce Louis Dodson is an American expat living in Borlänge, Sweden, where he writes fiction and poetry. Some of his most recent work has appeared in: Foreign & Far Away – Writers Abroad Anthology, Sleeping Cat Books – Trip of a Lifetime Anthology, Northern Liberties Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Tic Toc, and Storm Cycle Anthologies – Kind of a Hurricane Press, Vine Leaves, and Cordite Poetry Review.