Father

I've always found it odd, that the ones that seem the least complicated
Are those that break the mold, the tired conflicts of what is and should be
The image I followed, in childlike footsteps, the one to which I am compared
I've asked for so much, and yet so little, please just be proud of me



     To Dad...

My father, a man of direct ways and meaning
A quiet wisdom, and a thunder beneath his dramatic baritone
It reverberates, off mountains and clashes the wind of my being
He is stone and iron
I am wind and water, elusive and flowing
To his rough exterior, I am the thing that crashes
Against his jagged cliffs and brusque lashes

I've lived my life, within the shadow of his peaks
Proud and immobile, unyielding and powerful
Its silence in predawn when he speaks

Its marvelous, his storms, his council

The quiet giant that need not anger to emphasize
But his ire is delirious in its size
Sharp to word, truth is a weapon he passed down
But still wields it as a master, not dulled from age
Within its depths one could drown
Truth sets him free, so goes the adage

Is he proud of me?
I certainly may hope, wish for it
Even if I know I've fallen far short of his creed

The simplicity of his nature, the scope of his being
It still baffles me, leaves me breathless
The person he is, has always been the man
I strive, in myself, to conceive


The rock against my wind
The iron before my waters


His disappointment has always been palpable
His praise seldom, but cherished
If only I were capable
Of feeling those things that were nourished
By silence and distance

I would understand more the figure
Whom I've known as hero, through my years
As the man before him, his Elder
The slayer of my childhood fears
The one that taught me to be Father