Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome back the first of our Dignity issue artists, Daniel Gene Barlekamp of Massachusetts, with two achingly beautiful poems exploring dignity through the lens of family, personhood, and shared experience.
In “Ripples from a Stone Dropped in the Sewer,” Daniel recounts a walk to the school playground with his young son, attending closely to the wonder with which children greet the world.
“I don’t want to pass my fears onto him—/ fears of falling, of bugs, of dirt— /much less my sense of balance,/ so I let go of his hand/ and watch him explore a small outcropping of rock.”
As father and son wander, the tentativeness and anxiety of adulthood loosen in the sunlight filtering through oak leaves. His son’s instinctive joy becomes a kind of wisdom, a reminder that dignity can be found not only in steadiness but in openness, curiosity, and play. The poem closes with the two of them balancing on a rock wall, a metaphor for standing with those we love in life’s uncertain terrain.
In “I’ve Never Loved Her More,” Daniel turns to the bond between himself and his wife and their tenacity amidst life’s uncertainty.
“as we talk about starting over somewhere new, about/ leaving the place we’ve called home these last ten years,/ about realizing, without being told, that our roots/ just couldn’t take hold.”
He connects that tenacity to the persistence of nature through the oak tree in their yard, a scraggly, half‑dead presence that wheels in the wind and casts shadows on the window shades. His mother advises cutting it down, but Daniel and his wife feel a kinship with the oak and its wild dance for survival, recognizing in its stubbornness a reflection of their own.
Across both poems, Daniel’s imagery lifts the ordinary into the light, revealing the wonder and persistent beauty that lie unremarked all around us. His voice moves between fierceness and tenderness, reminding us that dignity often resides in the dance of holding on, letting go, and learning to endure.
Read Daniel’s perceptive poetry in Synkroniciti’s Dignity, Vol. 8, No. 2, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Daniel Gene Barlekamp now lives with his wife and their two children north of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for adults and young readers. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Eclectica, The Paterson Literary Review, and elsewhere, and has been translated into Chinese. He is also on the staff of Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag.