Understanding My Father

My father
Absent, frightened,  
anxiously whistling tunelessly to himself. 
So self-absorbed that you  
might imagine him
monitoring each cell in his body
for imperfections.

He gave that same gift to me
and I accepted it, unexamined,
until I became so lost
that I nearly disappeared. 

He didn't know
never understood
couldn't see beyond his imperfections. 
And then he died
and I was left alone
with his unintended gift. 

So many of us have received
these unintended gifts.
and they have shaped us
without our knowing.

Now we have become poets
or novelists
or painters
or musicians
or bullies
or murderers
or just struggling parents
like our fathers,
 trying not to give
our own children
the gifts our fathers gave to us. 

Jim Morgan  October 31, 2013