Here is the first of the poems:

Checking in:

There you are Dad

on our cobbled deck

splayed out in my favorite chair,

our nearly feral cat

content to be on your lap.

You hold up the perfect tomato

so round and red-ripe—

I can almost smell it.

It’s the best photo I’ve ever taken.

How is it

no one smiles like that anymore?

That miraculous summer

of just enough rain

and just enough sun,

you and Mom would often visit

our small college town

set down among ridges

rolled up so regularly

they seem like ocean waves.

Mom would pitch in,

while you stationed yourself

on the deck,

and scanned the natural world

like a ship’s lookout

in an iceberged sea.

We all waited on you, Pop—

our pleasure to watch

your many cares

melt away

in the swollen sun of summer.

By now,

the town has grown

to a minor metropolis.

We don’t grow our own

tomatoes anymore—

content to shop

at the farmers markets

that dot the countryside.

Today, at first snow,

the site of our old tomato patch

is white as time-honed bones

but if I close my eyes

I can still see it,

vibrant in that luscious red

that was our

glorious season.