Up Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Up
Up the Mountain of Sacrifice
You
Father I view and view
Again
Mounting slow
Stopping often to
Take breath that
Always so often left you.
I felt the pain and
Endured sacrifice with you.
I saw the snow caps of the mountain
The Mountain of Sacrifice
And
In my younger age stood
Fearsome and awed
Prepared for more of effort:
But you
Noble father continued
Continued trudging on and
On
In your own way
Humble and noble yet
With head held high and
Eyes upon the heavens and
The skies that smiled.
To me
Spoke you without speaking.
To me
You taught without teaching.
Father noble of the Pain and
Suffering
Who ascended so often
The noble Mountain of Sacrifice
Not
Out of penance
But of own discipline
For you
In your sweet greatness
Realized
That you had to depart
From that power glory
And brilliance that was
Yours so long
So long years
Grown little by little
So many years:
You did all
You did out of the beauty
Of the Soul that in you
Glimmered as the seas and
Oceans great before the Dawn
Announcing to weary Earth the
New day.
And that was nobility of body
And more of Soul
The fire that still burnt
As when young in the Inner Soul
Your heraldry of beauty and nobleness,
My father.