Sunday 13 February 2022

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Hamilton, Ontario

About Dad

Shortly after my father passed away in 2008, I wrote a poem in his honour, a way of saying “Thanks!” It will be his birthday on the 1st of February. He was born in the Netherlands, the place of tulips, in 1919. As a member of the Vaishnava tradition, bhakti yoga, we have a natural obligation to feel for our parents who did so much for us. Here’s my poem:

About Dad

Dear Creator

 

You struck a good balance

When you linked the leaf and petal

Came a man of heart and muscle

Smooth as silk, hard as metal

 

With pride he told his pastimes

Of a place of windmills and dikes

Which fueled life then and there

With feet on skates and feet on bikes

 

Folks then bore brutal war

Watched the stock market crash

Lost jobs but not nerve

Convictions could never be smashed

 

He left the land below sea level

For a promised place remote

Atlantic waters rippled by

On a real and wanderlust boat

 

He married a lady called Rose

Life was of both fragrance and thorn

They begot two guys ‘n two gals

Then twins were newly born

 

He walked us down the outdoor trails

But inside told of birds and bees

He gave us each those daily chores

And how to milk those cows with ease

 

He grew those plants with a green thumb

Toiled decades on the assembly line

With different strokes he cracked those jokes

He was just fun-loving all the time

 

Patience he learned in a very hard way

He gave us our choices in life

Our music was not to cope with

It gave him some stress and strife

 

His was a life full of colours

Sporting half beard and wooden shoes

He was extraordinary, yet ordinary

An upbeat dad you thought to never lose

 

His heart froze in the land of the petal

His body lies in the land of the leaves

Oh Creator, rest his soul in heaven

For he was born to give and please

 

May the Source be with you!

4 km


 

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