Family Man Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

My father was a weird figure, sat under a bridge
with a bottle, in a paper bag, looked at the river.
I think he was looking for something he had lost
when he was young. When he had sat there long
my mother, sent me to pick him up. Father never
spoke it was like he had given up on conversation.
At work he was known as the silent man. When he
retired his employers wanted to give him a watch,
for long service, but he didn´t show up preferred
to sit under a bridge with his bottle. One day when
I came to pick him up, he wasn´t there but was found
floating down streams. My father was a dreamer,
he had wanted to be an actor before he married,
mother thought that was a stupid idea, instead he
got a steady job at a factory making plastic ducks
and garden gnomes. When knowing this I mourned
a man who gave everything up for his family.