Family - The Love Between A Father And Son Poem by Paul Warren

Growing up in Australia in the Depression meant
You did without and your days were spent
As a boy selling papers in the morning and night
When you had a father who liked a drink and was not right

There were nights when the father came home drunk
And kicked the family out to a park bench in the cold and funk
Then his beloved mother died and the boy cried in grief
As her life was hard with his father and in years was only brief

So he grew up to be a man and served his country
Seeing the world in a destroyer of the Australian Navy
Coming home after the war he settled down
Having a family and being a better man than in his father he found

And I remember that day when I was a child of ten
There was a phone call with the bad news to send
That the father who treated him so badly had died
And I saw my father for the first time in my life he cried

My father had found a way to forgive his father's bad
And to find peace in their relationship they had
In the end I suppose what counted most
Was the love between a father and son without a boast.

© Paul Warren Poetry