Dad always loved words–
long ones, short ones,
tall ones, and fat ones.
He especially adored unique words
ringing in your ears like musical notes.
He minced words every chance he got,
and he still does at eighty-five.
Good-spirited verbal volleyball was his sport.
No crossword puzzle was safe for long
when Dad had a sharp pencil in his left hand.
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was his best friend,
and Roget’s Thesaurus was a close runner up.
Dad loved writing poetry.
Not something most millwrights do
in their spare time.
Every morning the muse danced for him, and
there were poems about nature, the Holy Spirit,
and anything else lending itself to rhyme.
Yes, Dad liked rhyming poems best–
those sounding like harps, guitars and pianos.
Each poem, when finished, was always printed
ever so neatly in Dad’s best handwriting
with a blue ballpoint pen.
Much later, of course, he turned
to the old black Royal typewriter
that went clackety clack,
when its silver keys were pressed into action.
Yes, my Dad had a love affairs with words,
and everyone who knew him
knew of his passion for morphemes, collocations, idioms,
phrases, colloquialisms, and euphemisms.
And everyone was surprised
that a man turning wrenches for a living
could turn heads and hearts with his words.
Most of all,
Dad was a man of his word.
His word was never idle chatter
nor meaningless fill for empty spaces
on a page or in a conversation.
Like most men of their word,
Dad opted for silence
over promises he could never keep.
Thanks Dad for teaching me to love words
and for insisting that I live up to my word.
Click here to hear me read this poem.
(Takes a few minutes to download.)
Poetic Alchemist 
Dan…thanks. I talked with my Dad today and he will work on giving me his top 100 poems to formulate into a book. He has written tons. This is a big step him.
A+
Andrew…thanks. Interesting question, and I might ask the same question about my two sons.
Beautiful. I wonder if my children will see me this way years from now?
Thanks Floots, Polona, and Gautami. Yes, I believe on a spiritual level we do choose our parents.
Your kind words about my Dad are much appreciated.
Floots, yes he was an inspiration. My first poetry book is dedicated to my faher.
Polona, I’m sure my Dad would adopt you. LOL.
Gautami…your Dad sounds like a very special man. It is interesting how we acquire our traits, habits, and other aspects of who and what we are from our mothers and fathers.
My dad too passed me his love for words. Out of his 4 children, I am the only one who writes poetry. He used to write in our mother tongue, Oriya, a Indian language..
He translated the GITA into Oriya. Wrote his own interpretations of it too. Now that he is no more, I miss him.
Thanks for this post. You have a great father!
i wish i had a father like that…
oh well… suppose we choose our parents according to what we need to learn in life, so…
love the poem, don.
thanks to him also for inspiring you to write this
a fine pen porttrait in poem form
cheers
Aurora…he was and still is. Thanks.
My Dad would like my help on this. I’ve asked him to select his 100 best poems (those he likes the most) and we can work from there. They will need to be typed and there is editing to be done. So, the answer is yes. I will remind him again about getting them to me.
Sounds like you had a wonderful father, Don.
Do you ever plan on publishing any of his poetry?