Jeff

Now Jeff who is my elder son

Who went to school for just a while

Then traveled ‘round the countryside

‘Fore settling down in Washington

He’s climbed the mountain trails alone

And often slept ‘neath starry skies

Enjoying what may come along

From all the birds, to deer and bear

Who sometimes took his old kayak

And up into the Cascades went

To paddle on a stream he knows

To practice and to test his boat

But often just to get away

From cares that cities often have

That bring a need to be alone

To take the pressures from his life.

But often he would take his wife

And with his two-seat kayak go

Out upon Vancouver Bay where

He and she would move for days

Around the isles that fill the Sound

While catching fish to supplement

The food they brought along with them

Jeff and puppy Phooka

Then sleeping on an isle of choice.

Jeff likes to hunt, so got a dog

A ten-month pup, a good Black Lab

Then trained the dog so very well

That when he hunts for ducks or geese

The Phooka’s ready to retrieve

Whatever lands, no matter where

He’s off the moment Jeff commands

And brings the bird back to the hand.

I now see in my elder son

The feelings that I had myself

The love of water and the woods

That puts us in a different world

And though our lives are far apart

He in the West, and I the East

I’m satisfied that now he’s found

The things I knew, when just a boy.

Phooka

Nate, Jeff and the Phooka 2010