So…. I have watched each of you sleep,
\ntasted the perfect bloom
\nof your sweet Child breath,
\nthought of myself
\nas your great protector,
\nthe keeper of precious fragile flames.
\nI chastise myself as I watch you awaken
\ninto the dawn of your youth,
\ninto the embrace of young adulthood.<\/p>\n
I listen to your stories
\nas told one to the other and others,
\nyour voices pure and beautiful
\nas fine silk,
\ntexture my ears may touch.<\/p>\n
As I listen, I know you have suffered,
\nbeen staggered by sullen blows of doubt.
\nI know you have been afraid of me,
\nyour father,
\nthat I might come crashing
\nthrough those doubting walls,
\nto discover you
\nwith the ghosts of your imperfections.<\/p>\n
In the night, voices do speak to me,
\nthe tiny ones of those of you
\nwho have come to go
\nand those who are still here
\nbut grown past the Child whispers
\nI aspire to hear.
\nI answer them
\nwith selfish humble tears in my eyes and sympathy
\nfor what has passed in my breathing,
\nfor they are the protectors
\nof my imperfections.
\nI tell myself I have done my job well,
\nfor you need me less now
\nthan ever before
\nand never as much as I imagined
\nin the feeble throes
\nof my attempts at perception.
\nThe far echoes of tiny voices
\nring down the spiral canyon of my years.
\nThey speak to me
\nin the perfect symmetry of Childhood wisdom.
\nThey fairly embrace me to stand.<\/p>\n
There are those who say I talk to myself.
\nThey are right, of course,
\nfor you are myself,
\nthe very one I was addressing,
\nthe one I have become.
\nI may answer a question from a score
\nof years gone by and by as I watch
\nmy daughter with her daughter
\nor my son making words to speak
\nto a brother twelve years his junior.<\/p>\n
I am your father,
\nthat is all I am… compleat.
\nYou give me the strength of your pride,
\nthe beautiful revelation
\nof the knowledge of our shared imperfections,
\nthrough it all,
\ncarry me to a place of unconditional devotion,
\nlove without fear, lighting candles
\nin the dark corners of my soul.<\/p>\n
I am made to be free, a man.
\nYou have been
\nand remain the perfect sentinels of my journey.
\nIf I come to see beyond the shadow,
\nIf I come to walk into and through the fire,
\nIf I come to feel, to love and be loved,
\nIf I father.<\/p>\n
Author: Tom Sterner-Howe<\/p>\n
The author is widely published online and in print. He has won the Marija Cerjak Award for Avant-garde\/Experimental Writing 2002, 2002 & 2003. His novel, “Madman Chronicles: The Warrior” ISBN# 1-59286-793-6, may be previewed at his website: http:\/\/pages.prodigy.net\/sterner-howe,<\/a> e-mail: sterner-howe@prodigy.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So…. I have watched each of you sleep, tasted the perfect bloom of your sweet Child breath, thought of myself as your great protector, the keeper of precious fragile flames. I chastise myself as I watch you awaken into the dawn of your youth, into the embrace of young adulthood. I listen to your stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems-for-dads","tag-poems-for-dads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}