Fathers Day Poem by Patrick William Kavanagh

Fathers Day



I remember you so well.
Hands like shovels, stubble-chinned
and always shrouded with the residue of last nights beer,
Calloused hands that felt like granite on my shoulders
in the random times you held me near.
And still I call you dad.

Sandy hair, so faded in the sun,
Drunk at night, yet off to work before the day was quite begun,
Who exactly was this man I called my dad,
You weren't the best at fatherhood,
But yet you were the best example that I had.

My childhood, - full of rows and unpaid bills,
and leather belts that stung the mind more than they stung my legs.
I learned that pride was stronger than the pain,
I never once gave in and never will, - and when you passed,
I swore than none would ever raise a hand to me again, and walk away

What did you ever teach me, apart from never giving up the fight.
What did you leave me, except the feeling of a loss for something that I never had.
But I saw you bleed, I saw you cry,
I saw the deep, deep pain within your eyes,
and scarce a week before you died,
I saw the truth, and realised how hard you really tried.

There is nothing to forgive,
You gave me life, and then I had to live it on my own,
A worrier at four years old, - a warrior at seven,
A mystic 'till the die I day,
and still I try to find the reason why,
So many people say they live for love,
But still the little children die.

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Lincolnshire
16/06/2013
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