Sonnet For My Father Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

O that I could weep, that my tears would flow.
I'd cry not for the dead but for the living -
And for the gulf twixt quick and dead where no
psychic bridge admits a last forgiving;
So all the natural energies of grief
are bottled up instead of flowing. Tho earth
receives his corpse yet sky is blank, unknowing
where his wandering soul has gone to seek rebirth.

Even to the end I seemed to blame,
And for this I truly am ashamed.
All that he gave me my father didn't want
himself: and so I'm left with one who haunts:
that crown of healing greatness set aside
I longed for him to own, but he denied.


On his death, a few days before his 92nd birthday: : New Years Day 2012