According to the Farmer’s Almanac, June is named for the Roman goddess Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth. I was born in June and named Donna June after my father Don and my birth month. In Grandfield, the little town in the southern-most part of Oklahoma where I was born and lived until I was seven, it seemed everyone was called by their first and middle names except for my mother whose name was Pollyanna—really two names in one. Mom’s best friends were Betty Ruth, Wanda Pearl, and Charming Ellen. My family called me Juney, and that was a relief. There is much to celebrate in June: Pride Month, Juneteenth, summer solstice, graduations, weddings, and Father’s Day. Here is one of my earliest memories–going fishing with my dad:
Introduction to the Food Chain
On the way to Deep Red Creek
I cried when Daddy shot a jackrabbit
startled onto the road.
Later, we walked along the mud bank.
I sobbed, carrying the pail of half-dead fish.
Daddy said, “Careful you don’t slip
or the water moccasins’ll get you.”
Mama wore moccasins
of leather soft as her hands
with a beaded red star on each toe.
—Donna Hilbert, from Deep Red, Event Horizon, 1993
Here is a poem from Diane LeBlanc, also featuring a father and fish, though in her poem, the fish is out of the bucket and onto a plate.
Small Bones
Fresh trout meant small bones
and my father at the kitchen table
bending over each filet,
a pencil grip on his knife,
and with the blade and one finger
extracting bones like slivers,
then warning us over and over
as we flaked bits onto our forks,
Watch for bones or you’ll choke!
If one slipped past, bristling in the throat,
he gave us bread to bind with bone
and made us swallow both.
To this day I can’t eat fish
without first shredding it,
searching for what may not be there,
still hearing in my father’s caution
not quite fear,
almost love.
By Diane LeBlanc from the forthcoming Dust of the Future, Terrapin Books
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
—read the rest of Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
This iconic poem by Robert Hayden, who was the first African American to be appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, is on my short list of favorite American poems of all time. Robert Hayden died in 1980, as did my father, before I had a chance to get to know him from an adult perspective, and perhaps to understand him, thank him for the good days.
Your Turn
What might you say to your father (whether or not he is living, whether or not he was a part of your life) to foster a better understanding? What would you like to tell him about your life now?
Post and post images by Donna Hilbert. Featured image by Mark 高維隆, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Full poems used with permission.
- Poet Laura: Going Fishing with Dad - June 10, 2026
- Poet Laura: Mother in Satin - May 6, 2026
- Poet Laura: Not the Cruelest Month - April 8, 2026
L. L. Barkat says
Oh, this, from Diane’s poem…
“without first shredding it,
searching for what may not be there”
And I love the explanation about your name, Donna. (How funny, too, about everyone being called by both first and middle names. Like being in a story book 🙂 ).
Is that a pic of you and your dad? How dear!
Donna Hilbert says
It is a photo of me and my dad in the snow. The father and the son ankle-deep in the ocean is my son and his son. They returned the sand shark to the water.