National Poetry Month begins tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait. Partly because I just love poetry, and partly because March is my Dad’s birthday month, and I wanted to pay tribute to him for the amazing life he lived, and the many wonderful memories he left behind. So much of who I am can be directly traced back to who he was. His fingerprints are all over my life. Thank you, Dad! It’s getting closer to a decade, and I still love and miss you!

For Years To Come
For Dad

For years to come
This date will speak of
My birth, your death
Simultaneously.
Burying some-vague-where
A significance
That still eludes my grasp.

For years to come
You can’t be seen
And still I reel at
This very thought
No conversations
No answers to questions
About things you alone knew.
Will your swagger be the same
I wonder
When finally we meet again?

For years to come
Waves of sadness will crash
On the shores of memory
How incongruous that day!
And when many moons
Have waxed and waned
I’ll weep afresh
With sudden bursts of grief.

For years to come
I will think of you
And the legacy left to me.
Dad
dear friend
Advisor
Confidante
And all other hats you often donned.

For years to come
I’ll sing your songs
Passed on to me
Through DNA
I’ll miss you
You, champion of my causes,
And regret that
There were no goodbyes.

Published in The Book of Mysteries (Novum Press USA, 2008)