POOR OLD DAD

It seems that at some point in life, the child becomes the parent. I wrote this after hearing friends talking about their parents who were growing old, and it occured to me that it would likely be my fate (if I live long enough) to have my children thinking of me as "poor old dad" - HEAVEN FORBID!

POOR OLD DAD
I heard them whisper in the hall
one said out loud "he had a fall"
then glances, guilty, looking up
saw me, and sipped from empty cup.

My kids!

though 40 years now separates
them from the time of teenage dates
it seems as though they’re now the dad
and somehow I’m their little lad.

I once heard one of them relate
the story of the backyard gate
at midnight she had seen me lie
beside the gate, below the sky.
And when she spoke and took my hand
it seemed I didn’t understand
just who she was, or what to do
she really didn’t think I knew.

Gate at midnight, brilliant sky
contemplate these works on high
leave the world and fly in space
past and future in one place.
Surprising that it takes some time
to come back from that world sublime?
to claw back to the earthly place
to recognize a daughter’s face?

Its love I guess that makes them care
and worry that I’m "not all there"
they think that time has not been kind
and things are fuzzy in my mind.

Fuzzy in my mind? Not True!
crystal clear and sparkling new
insights, brilliant, clear, defined
leaving lesser things behind.

As for the fall, she’s right, I did
but had it happened to a kid
no one would even spare a thought
my years are making them distraught.
They judge my acts by their own gauge
but I’m now on a different stage
how can they see that all has changed
priorities have rearranged.
I’m looking now at better things
while they still reach for golden rings
they’re planning how to live, and I
I’ve lived, and now I wait to die.