Father's Day

Let me sing about myself, or rather
Let me tell you something of my father.
He was a good man, first of all, the best
In numberless ways, from Portland, the west
End of Louisville. A worker by day,
And husband/father by night, my stay-
At-home mother’s best friend; and disciplined
To work and duty, faithful to church, deepened
By hard military experience,
A Marine, not given to prurience
But not without humor either. Unschooled
Like men of his time, wise and rarely fooled
By salesmen or shop girls. I will not disclose
His shortcomings. Allow me to keep them close
To my own heart for once, and not to speak
Of his secrets. What were the highest, the peak
Moments of his brief life? Perhaps my mother
Knew them. She admired the man, her other
Half, as they used to say. When he died at
Fifty-five, my life abruptly stopped. I sat
In a psychiatric hospital for
Six weeks, or paced its hard terrazzo floor,
Wondering how I got there and where should
I go from there. My greatest fear – he could
See me now, wherever I turned. Whatever
I did he oversaw. I could not sever
His spirit from me; it was many a year
Before I knew there was nothing to fear
From his knowing or his omnipresence;
Nor should I have been awed by his radiance.
My burden was to live with his good name,
To honor his memory, and hide the shame
That clogged my thinking. I often recall
Hamlet, "He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.”

Half a lifetime later, I miss the man.
He is still my hero, judge and standard
Although I am today less enamored
By his Greatest Generation code.
If my biography were named an ode
To my father’s decency, then I should
Think my life well-lived. He fathered a good
Man – myself – and nine others. Now let him
Rest and add his voice to angelic hymns.

I set out some time ago to tell
You of myself, but soon distracted, fell
Into an abyss of reminiscence
On my father, an icon, a god since
My earliest life. That’s enough for now;
I’ve said already more than he’d allow.