The Morning Light, Father


I am not yet done
looking out from your bedside
to the morning light,
father.

I have been awake
all night to help you wrestle
the tigers in your
darkness,

and I'm exhausted.
And now you sleep. Soon enough
you'll sleep forever,
I know,

and those tigers will
let you go. And each morning
when I see this light,
father,

I will think of you,
I will think of you again.





When I Wrote of You


you thought I made a monster,
mother. Don't you see
you were the heroine

of that story? The hard times
made us a hard life,
and you made the best

of it you could. The stories
I tell tell of triumph,
believe me. We rose

above the days which shaped us.
Look at what's become
of us, your children.

We are good ones, all. Maybe
you weren't a saint, dark-
angel, mother, but

you weren't a monster either.