My Father

My Dad was just a man -
Not a God -
He just tried
To live his life

As a true man does.
And anyway he's gone -
He's been gone 
These eleven years.

Part of me was lost with him.
Part has not been living since.
I strive for his high line - do, be
What I believe he wished for me -

But these standards I have set 
Are self-imposed vehicles
Of memory
And supposition.

I have knifed my heart for years
But you can't see the blood or
Collect the tears - you'd 
Drown in all that hidden fluid pain.

I never knew him.
Never had the chance
As grown woman
To talk to William the Man -

He was just my Dad.
And by the time I'd realised
How much he was worth; how big
Was my love;

How greatly I liked the whole being
Of him - he had died.
Since then I've tried so hard
To be him: as worthy a person.

I cart this self-imposed
Burden 
To expiate the guilt of not 
Knowing him as the man he was

Instead of figurehead.
He simply was all that is
Good in the world, my Dad
The worthy man, the man I miss.

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