'My Father Is Eighty Today 24 May 2008 Poem by Margaret Alice

Eighty today - if I had to choose
a father again, I would choose you

the gifts given me cannot be measured
or counted easily, your hundreds of books
hoarded with mother’s encyclopedias,
works of Langenhoven, a text on learning
techniques found in your cupboard

a tape-recorder you gave us; we played
stories and songs and programs you taped
over and over so our lives were always
bound in the security-creating framework
of familiar sound

you adored mother’s playing piano,
introduced light music to leaven
her classical pieces, a diet of Debussy,
Schubert and Chopin, the records you brought,
Strauss and Mantovani to supplement
Tchaikovsky and Mozart

you brought us fabulous toys, a go-cart,
petrol-driven cabriolet, steam trains and
walkie-talkies, dolls with beautiful hair
and prams to push them in, the complete works
of Shakespeare, my first French dictionary

your unerring instinct for fun, your laughter
and sense of joy, jolly songs by Koos Ras and
Christ Blignaut, Silver de Lange and his
concertina – your favourite band, the movies
you loved, My Fair Lady and Dr Zhivago

your love for steam trains, for fine porcelain
and beautiful wood, for restoration, for antiques,
your delight in small children and joy in sunsets,
your words in unending stream, fast and furious as
a river in flood, your forgiveness for what I have
done to you, the way you kept my secrets

I love you father and the perfect
girl you chose to be my mother
I will always choose you
if given a choice
– for eternity