Father’s Day Poems

Some poems I wrote in honor of Father’s Day 2012

Father

My own father was a man
of many laughs and tears.

Full of guarded passions
was that man,
at least to a child’s eye

It is of very little wonder where
I gained my poetic heart.

He would sing in his
sweet tenor voice. Just the memory
brings a tear to my eye.

Oh how I love that man.
I would shadow him anywhere, if he let me.

From the shadows I learned
as his talented hands built
family, and literally, our homes.

Today I type poetry from a house
I remade into a home.

Oh miss him the sight of him.
Though his soul remains guarded
in my heart.

We are never far apart
as I carry my memories of him

like metals, some hard won.
But mine to take out and polish
on a Father’s Day, like this one.

~

Hiding Ourselves Away

I wish my dad knew
I wrote poetry.

It would have been nice
to share that piece of me
with him.

Afraid of his judgment
I hid myself away
in his tool box.

I thought he would
find me
there.

I did not realize the sharpness
of that chisel’s end

That caused him to only see
the edges of me that mistakenly cut
him as I tried to wiggle free of his grasp.

Hiding ourselves away…
in hopes of self-preservation
we lose the chance to live.

I wish I knew
my Dad wrote too.

This only discovered
after he was gone. It would have
been nice, for each to know,

we shared this too.
Maybe then I would have locked
myself in his pencil box instead.

The pencils unsharpened,
but posed to create.
Our stories might be different

had we not
hid ourselves away.

Now concerned my vocalized
voice will cause more pain…
I fret over words and tones.

I hide new parts of me away
as they scream for their liberation
I try to temper their edges before their release.

As I am now, afraid
to hide myself away.

~

Dad By Any Other Name

I have called you Dad
for seventeen years
though biologically
there are no ties.

At first I called you Dad
in hopes that you could find some
love for me, for your daughter’s sake
when love found us.

Then I called you Dad
because mine was gone,
and I needed someone to
that would talk reason to me

It was at that moment I called you Dad
because you were there
for me
when I wanted to throw in the towel.

Along the way I have called you Dad
because of all that you have done
and given me,
which includes the world, one trip at a time.

Today I call you Dad
because to me
you are…
my Dad by any other name.