The Inheritance

I remember
Sadness
In my father’s eyes.

It leaked
From his eyebrows
Through downcast lids.
Maybe from the poverty of 1929.
Perhaps from the weariness of ’45
Having burrowed deeply into his heart.

He always had answers
To which he
Had no questions
Which is often worse
Than the other way around.
Everything had reason, he said
There are no mysteries.

A man can’t live that way
Not for long.

Eventually he swallowed
The whole of his pain
Though it was a life’s effort .
He choked it all down…everything.
His father’s vagrancy
Mother’s cancer
The bullets and bombs
The terror of the Panzers.
The fear of too little money
For a growing family.
He was always afraid he would fail
Though I knew he was a Super Hero.

I never asked my father
What he felt
Because I was afraid
He would tell me.

I couldn’t endure that.

My father was not a sad man
But his eyes were haunted
Having endured the hurt
He wore like a coat.

But my father gave me what he could:

He gave me a lump at the back of my throat.