Isn't that puzzling, your father suddenly outcropping a yearning for a poem, and it's about the lands where the Jumblies live! Actually, I think it's wonderful!

And then asking for a race-horse poem to be read at his funeral.

One never knows when the need for a poem will surface.

My father would let us small children bounce on his knee while he recited a French poem about a galloping horse in a terrible Texas accent. He bounced faster and faster until we fell off laughing.

And you've also helped me suddenly remember these moments with my dad:

He could make little white mice out of his handkerchiefs, and he would make them appear to move in his palm.

And he'd patiently draw pictures to go with each alphabet letter--I remember sitting in his lap and learning A and seeing a crayoned red apple.

Another memory of my father breaks through: toward the end of his life, my sister and I could sing the Pie Jesu duet for him from Weber's Requiem, and he'd cry every time. We can't sing it anymore, or we'll cry ourselves, remembering him.