Our Father

Photo by Robert Trakofler

Our Father

To what do we turn 

when we are weary 

and hope seems to spurn;

when visions get bleary

in life’s great concerns

We look to… our fathers

and the ones before

evoke even farther

progenitors of yore

we search for the harbor

that they held us afore

And there will come a time

when we all must stand

alone on the shore

and add his, loving strand 

to the many before

and pray we can expand

to their heart’s implore

© 2024 Robert Trakofler

Author's Note

Robert · Our Father

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

In your very fine and sincere way, have surely led readers to understand how the past can create another part of the Being.. We are given an example, can be good, can be bad.. and that can be the way we look at the world and act accordingly . Father - and mother. kind, gentle, loving.. we grow up knowing nothing else. Parents, abusive, disinterested, we humans know little of a child's small world and leave it empty of warmth - and more. Your poem seems to usher us to move forward with love and yet more love for who comes next,, Is the father by birth and He who showed us how a parent should.. can.. be.

[Robert Trakofler]

I have thousands of photographs and often I find one and write from it, but this time it was the reverse. as i was perusing the various files this one jumped out at me because it looks like an eye... it is a photograph of the last solar eclipse it is in fact the only time when dusk and dawn occur simultaneously I thought it the perfect metaphor for speaking of what are predecessor's give us and how we must take that and go forward :) You know it also dawned on me (no pun intended) that this applied to writing as well we take what we have been handed down from the many before and we then try to expand upon their words:) what a gift we are given dear Emmy

[emmajoygreen]

Yes, we certainly are. That is a wonderful thought, plus, a kaleidoscopic reason or excuse for using whatever comes to mind without too much thought? That is a writer's right, yes?

[Kelly Scheppers]

Your voice is what did it for me, Robert. Such a special treat to actually hear the poet's rendering of their own work. I lost my Dad at a very young age and have no childhood memories of him. But I know his DNA is in me, and I know I get my creative gene from him, since he was a painter. I treasure that everyday of my life. You've touched my heart with this one, today. Thank you, Robert!

[Robert Trakofler]

Thank you Kelly:) wow that must have been very hard for you and your family I hope he left you lots of artwork to reflect upon

[h d e rushin]

My dad was always drunk most of the time. And when he wasn't he was mostly annoyed by the nuisance of it all. But he did make time to write poetry which was in a book he kept below the cushions of is favorite chair. Poems of flowers, trees and the abomination of blue skies. What I mean is that there is a null force or void inside all of us who's nugatory uselessness has to be filled. He was the greatest man I ever met and the finest poet. Love Robert, is the zero sum of failed processes. Great poem. dana.

[Robert Trakofler]

Holy cats! It’s Dana:) I would like to see some of his poetry:) if he is anything like you it must be amazing! Your heart is always on the page and I’m thinking his was too

[Ken Simm.]

I am glad you can feel this and I enjoy the way you wrote it. I someyimes wish I could have done the same.

[Robert Trakofler]

Same as in wish you had written something to your father I am glad I could and did:) posthumous notes are excepted by the way:) One of the things that happened to me when I spent so much time in a semi vegetative state was the fact that I couldn’t speak for so long I swore to myself I would say the things I wished I had said before hence this poem!

[Carola]

a very thoughtful poem robert.
i'm pleased to say that when my father at the age of 87 left my mother & remarried a much younger woman she changed his outlook towards me for the better, & I enjoyed about 8 years of discovering a 'new' father before he died in 2012.
I've not been much to WC since my husband sadly died last year, we'd been married 51½ years. now I'm busy doing all the things he used to do for me.
have a great sunday.
cheerio carola

[Robert Trakofler]

I am so sorry to hear that I could not imagine the heartache you must be enduring it has been about a year since my mother's second husband has passed and she is getting better but it is still very hard for her. I hope you are healing as well as can be grieving is always a personal thing! But know that a friend across the pond sends his love:)

[Carola]

thank you for your kind comments

[D]

Fathers symbolize foundation, the stepping stone, the brick and grain of us. So its little wonder that in good times as well as bad, we go back to it all. Right where it all began. For there we search for our answers and rightly so because most of the answers we need, we find there. So when we stand alone on that shore, we instinctively seek the harbor that set us to sail. A wonderful poem dear Bunny. Beautiful metaphors, rhyming and flow.

[Robert Trakofler]

these days Dad's get a bum rap LOL you could squint reading this and just as easily take it for mothers as well LOL both are true sources of nurture but in a way I was kind of trying to isolate the masculine element of nurture at least what in my mind that entails I also liked the the title our father because of the prayer reference :) you know me always looking for double meanings in my word choices bounce bounce

[D]

Yes, I do know that and I appreciated the title and was in fact drawn in by it. This was an awesome offering for Father's Day. Keeping bouncing, my dear Bunny. ❤️

[Poetic Beauty]

We look to those who have come before us for guidance and reassurance and eventually we are the ones people are looking to for those things. Inevitably we are standing on the shore alone.

[Robert Trakofler]

I have been feeling overwhelmed a lot lately when penning a fathers day poem for my dad this undercurrent came out of just what it is to be a father and inevitably a little smatter of what it is to be a writer too we are all authors of life and it is up to us to be the fathers ourselves it can be such a burden when you take into account all that came before us what precedence we have to live up to... in life and in write

[Robert Trakofler]

this of course also includes mothers LOL I could have titled the poem our mothers LOL

[Poetic Beauty]

Fathers have their own place. There is a difference between fathers and mother; unless you have to take on both roles. Society in this day and age forget that there is scientific proof of physical differences between genders which includes the brain as well. Men and women each have their own roles to play in life, something that is trying to be a skewed. I’m not talking in who stays home and who doesn’t, I mean personality and physical traits. Sorry I regressed for a moment. lol

This poem shows the struggle within when we look at those have come before us and when we are the one others look to. It’s a deep thinking poem