Ministry of Chairs

I was ten trying to carry the metal chair
that, folded, stood higher than my armpit
where my dad deftly tucked two on each side
to return to a roomful of guitars hung like sentries
above old textbooks and the empty space for the
chairs that had to be moved before and after each concert and show,
a repetition that challenged my youthful inattention.

He was a music teacher–a man of harmony and rhythm,
of pitch and measured rests and silences,
of spaces between the notes when we rode in the car
to Lovely’s Farm Market past Richard’s Run in fall’s half-light.

He rammed his shin’s side against the bottom bar
to straighten the row of chairs when I handed him one
then hurried back to tackle the next seemingly endless row
that had to be removed before I could shoot free throws again.

He played the upright with Mrs. Sanker to craft an operetta,
her big toe by the pedals while I swallowed gum.
He taught his choirs “What Do We Do with a Drunken Sailor”
and “Walk Like an Egyptian”. He kept stickered charts on the door,
inspirational messages by his desk, and posters of solfège syllables.

His metronome consistency marked by rehearsals and soundboards,
mics and risers, by the ritual ministry of chairs
so that some dad might come in on an evening after working
at the lumber yard by the river, sit, see his young son singing
and a sliver of light might crack through the old gym windows
above the bleachers and settle through the dust of this life
and a note of hope might echo within their old truck
as they head home past Todd’s Fork and into life’s backroads.
Each chair a different note in a lifesong of service.

Nathan Coates lives in Lebanon, Ohio with his family and spends his days helping high school students read and write. These are some of the first poems he has sent out into the world.