Troubadour
When I was a boy and my fist
Would land into my father’s arm,
I’d cry out, and he’d say
Didn’t hurt me none.
He’s been dead six years now,
And my work is still to try
To beat myself up
And make the pain last.
Copyright © 2014 by Mark Yakich. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on July 1, 2014.
“Originating in southern Europe in the eleventh century, troubadours were composers and performers of lyric poetry. Although today ‘troubadour’ connotes ‘traveling minstrel,’ most of them traveled little and wrote for wealthy patrons. This poem ‘Troubadour’ was written for my father, who explored the world not by traversing it but by reading about it. At his death, he hadn’t taken a trip of more than one hundred miles for thirty years, and his book collection included more than 15,000 volumes of nonfiction.”
—Mark Yakich
Mark Yakich
Mark Yakich is the author of The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin, 2008). He teaches at Loyola University New Orleans.