To Father On His Birthday
Every so often when someone asks, What’s your father in your life? I tell them his role has been seminal. Laughing and giggling, they say I’m witty. Mewling, crawling, standing and falling, His fingers have been my first crutches. My filial cry would be barely heard before He raised me high to the tones of joy. Will a poem or elegant prose do For a man who taught me to speak? Or should I write hymns day in, day out In the letters he sewed in me by his blood?