I STAND BEFORE THE EARTH (A Father’s Poem) by Su’eddie Vershima Agema

The sands of Mbanor kiss my feet
As my eyes behold mounds of my past
Thinking of my present as I bury the future

I am at a door in my head
Yesterday a lasting now
Where my will fights convention
Rather than strike at folly
I let my rod slip and take a feather
To tickle correction into my ward
Urging him away from the troubled waters
In which he swims

I find troubles crowd back
And pull him in as he sinks deeper
My feather a stone tied to his feet

I stand before the earth
Fresh sands slipping through my fingers
A glass of fate’s misfortune to my lips as I sip sorrow
Cursing convention

I take a rod to close the door to his memory

Where pain sits astride a father’s loss.

 

Proverbs 13:24

 

 

Happy Father’s Day to all the beautiful fathers out there and to those mothers who are more fathers than a million others.