Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A SON'S LETTER TO HIS DEAD FATHER, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SON'S LETTER TO HIS DEAD FATHER, by                    
First Line: I am writing this to you
Last Line: "up there somewhere in the silence, hear me, dad, and believe me / sincerely"
Subject(s): Fathers & Sons


Dear Dad:

I am writing this to you, though you have been dead for thirty years. From
your seat in the Place Beyond I hope you can see these lines. I feel I must say
something to you, things I didn't know when I was a boy in your house, things I
was too stupid to say. It's only now, after passing through the long, hard
school of years; only now when my own hair is gray that I understand how you
felt. I must have been a bitter trial to you. I was such a fool. I believed
my own petty wisdom and I know how ridiculous it was compared to that calm,
ripe, wholesome wisdom of yours. Most of all I want to confess my worst sin
against you. It was the feeling that I had that you "did not understand --."
When I look back over it now, I know that you did understand -- you understood
me better than I did myself. Your wisdom flowed around mine like the ocean
around an island -- and how patient you were with me! How full of long suffering
and kindness and how pathetic were your efforts to get close to me to win my
confidence, to be my pal.

I wouldn't let you, I couldn't -- what was it held me aloof? I don't know.
But it was tragic -- that wall that rises between a boy and his father, and
their frantic attempts to see through it and climb over it.

I wish you were here across the table from me, for an hour so that I could
tell you how there's no wall any more; I understand you now, Dad, how I love you
and how I wish I could go back to be your boy again. I know now how you felt.
Well, it won't be long, Dad, 'til I am over and I believe you'll be the first to
take me by the hand and take me up the further slope. And I'll put in the first
thousand years or so making you realize that not one pang or yearning on your
part was wasted. It took a good many years for this prodigal son -- and all
sons are in a measure prodigal -- to come to himself, but I've come. I see it
all now.

I know that the richest, most priceless things on earth, and the thing least
understood, is that mighty love and tenderness and craving to help, which a
father feels toward his boy. For I have a boy of my own.
And it is he that makes me want to go back to you and get down on my knees
to you.
Up there somewhere in the Silence, hear me, Dad, and believe me.

Sincerely,





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