My Papa's Waltz

By Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death.
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battere on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a plam caked hard by dirt
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

I have had read this poem in Frank McCourt's novelAngela's Ashes and I was dumb-struck by its meaning---fifteen years ago (even until now), though I'm not a boy instead a girl, suffered/experienced the mentioned acts on the lines of the poem. Tears flowed in my eyes when I came to realize that it's not only me who suffered such but many.

My father's drinking sessions happen every afternoon almost everyday in every week. I cannot fathom how many liters of alcohol he has drunk and where he put all those. Since time immemorial, I haven't seen him stopped drinking even just for a week. He would try to for four to five days but on the sixth, he would likely buy a bottle of beer and drink it alone---at home.

When I was in preschool, I am tasked to fetch my father in his favorite drinking pub (a store blocks away from our house). As I came into the place, he's already 'hallucinating', making mentions of his past and singing preposterously all the bisayan songs he knew.

What I did to get him home was pull him on his shirt, sometimes on his pants. It doesn't mean that I was young then, I don't feel embarrassment on his doings---I already am! My face turns red every time his drinking comrade would say'Hubog na imu papa, Lang. Sagdi rakan 'ton. Di kaw 'ton kadaug maggujod.'(You father's drunk now, Dear. Leave him. You cannot pull him alone.) If only only you could see how I feel humiliated at that moment.


Until now, my father has never stopped drinking, instead worsened. My youngest brother (has just turn three) took my place. Every time I see him cling to him when his drunk, I shed a tear. What would be my father's future if he's always like that? Seeing my brother on the other hand, do not just made me shed but wept in sadness at how cruel the times must have been to us. My father has not changed a bit but turn into a remorseful one. I worried for his soul, for his life, his everything.

On my brother's case, I imagined how he does exactly the lines spoke about in the poem above. When Papa's under the influence of the liquor, bro would likely cling unto him and would be my father's defense to Mama's nagging voice and flying tweaks, pinches and spanks. Bro turned out to be father's defender.


Life's like a beer. Once you have a problem, you can intoxicate yourself to forget the ups and trials you have in your hand. This is my consolation to myself every time my dear father's tanked up. He must have many things in his mind, too heavy to bear  so he needs beer to carry the weights he has as his yoke. But everyday is a burden to me, seeing him in that way almost every now and then.


As they (bro and papa) glided their waltz on their way to bedroom, I realized, life is like a dance--if you cannot dance it gracefully, you'll be criticized and judged. If you'll be able to dance it with vivacity, problems will just come passing by without you noticing it.

There, they embraced together. Father's still soiled and muddy yet my little brother's squeezing him with much affection and tenderness and he likewise as if nothing had happened.

He may dance his way to our house when we will not be able to fetch him, at least his waltzing amusingly (one forward, three backwards).

Though my father almost always went home in that way, he's still a father to my siblings-----and to me.