Father's Day Poems
These are my best poems about fathers and their families, along with translations of poems about husbands and fathers.
These are my top ten poems of all time written about husbands, fathers and the subject of fathering. After the top ten and honorable mentions there are a few surprises, including a fine poem by an ex-president of the United States!
"O, mein papa, to me he was so wonderful..."
(#10) "Full Fathom Five" by William Shakespeare
(#9) "My Father was a Farmer: a Ballad" by Robert Burns
(#8) "Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish
(#7) "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee
(#6) "my father moved through dooms of love" by e. e. cummings
(#5) "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet
(#4) "On My First Son" by Ben Jonson
(#3) "Cradle Song" by William Blake
(#2) "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas and "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath (tie)
(#1) "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
HONORABLE MENTION: "Cradle Song" by William Blake, "How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Digging" by Seamus Heaney, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, "All My Pretty Ones" by Anne Sexton, "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, translation by Michael R. Burch
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
“Those Winter Sundays” is my landslide winner as the best Father’s Day poem of all time, and the best poem written about a father by his son.
First fall morning:
the mirror I investigate
reflects my father’s face.
—Masaoka Shiki, translation by Michael R. Burch
If my father were here,
we would gaze
over dawn’s green fields together.
—Kobayashi Issa, translation by Michael R. Burch
A good father
drives away crows
from his sparrow-like children.
—Uejima Onitsura, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from "My Father was a Farmer: a Ballad"
by Robert Burns
My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.
Excerpt from "Identity Card"
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My father descended from plowmen,
not from the privileged classes.
My grandfather was a lowly farmer
neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Still, they taught me the pride of the sun
before teaching me how to read;
now my house is a watchman's hut
made of branches and cane.
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name, but no title!
Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart’s wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left speechless.
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from "The Gift"
by Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.
I can't remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face ...
They observed our fearful fetters,
marched against the encroaching darkness;
now gratefully we commemorate their excellence.
Bravely, they fought for us.
—Mnasalcas, translation by Michael R. Burch
Full Fathom Five
by William Shakespeare
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — ding-dong, bell.
May the gods prolong the night
(yes, let it last forever!)
as long as you sleep in my sight.
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from "my father moved through dooms of love"
by e. e. cummings
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height ...
A good man is hard to find,
which leaves the bad girls in a bind.
—Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from “On My First Son”
by Ben Jonson
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! …
Warriors on rearing chargers, columns of infantry, fleets of warships:
some call these the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say: the one I love.
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch
I Wanted to Share My Father's World
by Jimmy Carter
This is a pain I mostly hide,
but ties of blood, or seed endure,
and even now I feel inside
the hunger for his outstretched hand,
a man's embrace to take me in,
the need for just a word of praise.
This abandoned mountain shack—
how many nights
has autumn sheltered here?
—Ono no Komachi, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from “To My Father”
by Shamik Banerjee
Quick-snaking your old scooter through cramped lanes,
Bypassing every pothole's mucky gap,
You'd reach my school in time by half past eight
Before the brass bell rang out, "Tardy! Late!"
Oh my papa, to me he was so wonderful.
Oh my papa, to me he was so good.
No one could be so gentle and so lovable.
Oh my papa, he always understood.
—"O, Mein Papa" by Paul Burkhard
Excerpt from “To Her Father with Some Verses”
by Anne Bradstreet
… My stock's so small I know not how to pay,
My bond remains in force unto this day; …
Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!
—Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch
Excerpt from “To My Dear and Loving Husband”
by Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
Excerpt from "Working Late"
by Louis Simpson
A light is on in my father's study.
"Still up?" he says, and we are silent,
looking at the harbor lights,
listening to the surf
and the creak of coconut boughs.
Excerpt from "Lay Back the Darkness"
by Edward Hirsch
My father in the night shuffling from room to room
on an obscure mission through the hallway.
Help me, spirits, to penetrate his dream
and ease his restless passage.
Lay back the darkness …
The following are poems I have written and translated for my father and grandfathers, and other poems I have written from the perspective of a father for my son Jeremy...
Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt
Between the prophesies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.
The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,
and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.
What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.
Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly ...
Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.
I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat—
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it ...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.
“Nobody knows that it’s there, lad, or that it’s fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin’s or lard.”
“Don’t eat the berries. You see—the berry’s no good.
And you’d hav’ta wash the leaves a good long time.”
“I’d boil it twice, less’n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it’s tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.”
He seldom was hurried; I can see him still ...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man’s angular gray grace.
Sometimes he’d pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.
He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.
Years later I found the proper name—“pokeweed”—while perusing a dictionary.
Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a weed.
I still can hear his laconic reply ...
“Well, chile, s’m’times them times wus hard.”
The Desk
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes. I wonder how
he learned at all ...
He saw T-Rexes down the hall
and dreamed of trains and cars and wrecks.
He dribbled phantom basketballs,
shot spitwads at his schoolmates’ necks.
He played with pasty Elmer’s glue
(and sometimes got the glue on you!).
He earned the nickname “teacher’s PEST.”
His mother had to come to school
because he broke the golden rule.
He dreaded each and every test.
But something happened in the fall—
he grew up big and straight and tall,
and now his desk is far too small;
so you can have it.
One thing, though—
one swirling autumn, one bright snow,
one gooey tube of Elmer’s glue ...
and you’ll outgrow this old desk, too.
Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and my father, Paul Ray Burch Jr.
There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than “much.”
So more than “much,” much more than “all.”
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother’s there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.
There never was a stronger back
than father’s back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother’s tender smile
will leap and follow after you!
Sanctuary at Dawn
by Michael R. Burch
I have walked these thirteen miles
just to stand outside your door.
The rain has dogged my footsteps
for thirteen miles, for thirty years,
through the monsoon seasons . . .
and now my tears
have all been washed away.
Through thirteen miles of rain I slogged,
I stumbled and I climbed
rainslickened slopes
that led me home
to the hope that I might find
a life I lived before.
The door is wet; my cheeks are wet,
but not with rain or tears . . .
as I knock I sweat
and the raining seems
the rhythm of the years.
Now you stand outlined in the doorway
—a man as large as I left—
and with bated breath
I take a step
into the accusing light.
Your eyes are grayer
than I remembered;
your hair is grayer, too.
As the red rust runs
down the dripping drains,
our voices exclaim—
"My father!"
"My son!"
I wrote “Sanctuary at Dawn” either in high school or during my first two years of college because it appears in a poetry contest notebook that I created after my sophomore year, which I still possess.
Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch
for George Edwin Hurt Sr.
When I was a child
I never considered man’s impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.
And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
"Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid ..."
as the angels sang.
And, O!, I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.
Now I'm a man—
a man ... and yet Grandpa ... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.
I wrote "Be That Rock" around age 18. The verse quoted is from an old, well-worn King James Bible my grandfather gave me after his only visit to the United States, as he prepared to return to England with my grandmother. I was around eight at the time and didn't know if I would ever see my grandparents again, so I was heartbroken—destitute, really. Fortunately my father was later stationed at an Air Force base in Germany and we were able to spend four entire summer vacations with my grandparents. I was also able to visit them in England several times as an adult. But the years of separation were very difficult for me and I came to detest things that separated me from my family and friends: the departure platforms of train stations, airport runways, even the white dividing lines on lonely highways and interstates as they disappeared behind my car. My idea of heaven became a place where we are never again separated from our loved ones. And that puts hell here on earth.
Men at Sixty
by Michael R. Burch
after Donald Justice's "Men at Forty"
Learn to gently close
doors to rooms
you can never re-enter.
Rest against the stair rail
as the solid steps
buck and buckle like ships’ decks.
Rediscover in mirrors
your father’s face
once warm with the mystery of lather,
now electrically plucked.
Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt
With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.
Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,
nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use—
to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine resplendent glories at their feet.
Thou art the grass;
make them complete.
Native American Poetry Translations
These are modern English translations of some of my favorite Native American poems, proverbs and sayings. I translated the first three poems when my father, Paul Ray Burch Jr., made the decision to stop taking dialysis and enter hospice.
Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I will extract the thorns from your feet.
Yet a little longer we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own brother, my own blood.
When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes.
And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest.
Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Happily may you walk
in the paths of the Rainbow.
Oh!,
and may it always be beautiful before you,
beautiful behind you,
beautiful below you,
beautiful above you,
and beautiful all around you
where in Perfection beauty is finished.
Cherokee Travelers' Blessing III
loose loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
May Heaven’s warmest winds blow gently there,
where you reside,
and may the Great Spirit bless all those you love,
this side of the farthest tide.
And when you go,
whether the journey is fast or slow,
may your moccasins leave many cunning footprints in the snow.
And when you look over your shoulder, may you always find the Rainbow.
Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux, circa 1840-1877
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.
Native American Travelers' Blessing
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Let us walk together here
among earth's creatures great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.
Native American Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Help us learn the lessons you have left us
in every leaf and rock.
Free Fall to Liftoff
by Michael R. Burch
for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.
I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to ...
My Touchstone
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather George Edwin Hurt Sr.
A man is known
by the life he lives
and those he leaves,
by each heart touched,
which, left behind,
forever grieves.
Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt
This distance between us
—this vast sea
of remembrance—
is no hindrance,
no enemy.
I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.
I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.
I feel the sea's salt spray—light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.
Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.
Note: Under the Sextant’s Stars is a painting by Bernini.
All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.
Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are
somehow more near
and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you taught me
wish
that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!
and everywhere above, each hopeful star
gleamed down
and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw
and taught me heaven, omen, meteor . . .
Reflex
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
Some intuition of her despair
for her lost brood,
as though a lost fragment of song
torn from her flat breast,
touched me there . . .
I felt, unable to hear
through the bright glass,
the being within her melt
as her unseemly tirade
left a feather or two
adrift on the wind-ruffled air.
Where she will go,
how we all err,
why we all fear
for the lives of our children,
I cannot pretend to know.
But, O!,
how the unappeased glare
of omnivorous sun
over crimson-flecked snow
makes me wish you were here.
Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
Cherubic laugh; sly, impish grin;
Angelic face; wild chimp within.
It does not matter; sleep awhile
As soft mirth tickles forth a smile.
Gray moths will hum a lullaby
Of feathery wings, then you and I
Will wake together, by and by.
Life’s not long; those days are best
Spent snuggled to a loving breast.
The earth will wait; a sun-filled sky
Will bronze lean muscle, by and by.
Soon you will sing, and I will sigh,
But sleep here, now, for you and I
Know nothing but this lullaby.
Success
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;
there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette
to be delivered for mending skinned knees,
no wild bursts of approval for shoveling snow.
A kiss is the only approval they show;
to leave us—the first great success they achieve.
Passages on Fatherhood
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
He is my treasure,
and by his happiness I measure
my own worth.
Four years old,
with diamonds and gold
bejeweled in his soul.
His cherubic beauty
is felicity
to simplicity and passion—
for a baseball thrown
or an ice-cream cone
or eggshell-blue skies.
***
It’s hard to be “wise”
when the years
career through our lives
and bees in their hives
test faith
and belief
while Time, the great thief,
with each falling leaf
foreshadows grief.
***
The wisdom of the ages
and prophets and mages
and doddering sages
is useless
unless
it encompasses this:
his kiss.
Boundless
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
Every day we whittle away at the essential solidity of him,
and every day a new sharp feature emerges:
a feature we’ll spend creative years: planing, smoothing, refining,
trying to find some new Archaic Torso of Apollo, or Thinker . . .
And if each new day a little of the boisterous air of youth is deflated
in him, if the hours of small pleasures spent chasing daffodils
in the outfield as the singles become doubles, become triples,
become unconscionable errors, become victories lost,
become lives wasted beyond all possible hope of repair . . .
if what he was becomes increasingly vague—like a white balloon careening
into clouds; like a child striding away aggressively toward manhood,
hitching an impressive rucksack over sagging, sloping shoulders,
shifting its vaudevillian burden back and forth,
then pausing to look back at us with an almost comical longing . . .
if what he wants is only to be held a little longer against a forgiving bosom;
to chase after daffodils in the outfield regardless of scores;
to sail away like a balloon
on a firm string, always sure to return when the line tautens,
till he looks down upon us from some removed height we cannot quite see,
bursting into tears over us:
what, then, of our aspirations for him, if he cannot breathe,
cannot rise enough to contemplate the earth with his own vision,
unencumbered, but never untethered, forsaken . . .
cannot grow brightly, steadily, into himself—flying beyond us?
First Steps
by Michael R. Burch
for my goddaughter, Caitlin Shea Murphy
To her a year is like infinity,
each day—an adventure never-ending.
She has no concept of time,
but already has begun the climb—
from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending.
I would caution her, "No! Wait!
There will be time enough another day ...
time to learn the Truth
and to slowly shed your youth,
but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way! ..."
But her time is not a time for cautious words,
nor a time for measured, careful understanding.
She is just certain
that, by grabbing the curtain,
in a moment she will finally be standing!
Little does she know that her first few steps
will hurtle her on her way
through childhood to adolescence,
and then, finally, pubescence . . .
while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray!
Renown
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
Words fail us when, at last,
we lie unread amid night’s parchment leaves,
life’s chapter past.
Whatever I have gained of life, I lost,
except for this bright emblem
of your smile . . .
and I would grasp
its meaning closer for a longer while . . .
but I am glad
with all my heart to be unheard,
and smile,
bound here, still strangely mortal,
instructed by wise Love not to be sad,
when to be the lesser poet
meant to be “the world’s best dad.”
Of Civilization and Disenchantment
by Michael R. Burch
Suddenly uncomfortable
to stay at my grandfather’s house—
actually his third new wife’s,
in her daughter’s bedroom
—one interminable summer
with nothing to do,
all the meals served cold,
even beans and peas . . .
Lacking the words to describe
ah!, those pearl-luminous estuaries—
strange omens, incoherent nights.
Seeing the flares of the river barges
illuminating Memphis,
city of bluffs and dying splendors.
Drifting toward Alexandria,
Pharos, Rhakotis, Djoser’s fertile delta,
lands at the beginning of a new time and “civilization.”
Leaving behind sixty miles of unbroken cemetery,
Alexander’s corpse floating seaward,
bobbing, milkwhite, in a jar of honey.
Memphis shall be waste and desolate,
without an inhabitant.
Or so the people dreamed, in chains.
Keep Up
by Michael R. Burch
Keep Up!
Daddy, I’m walking as fast as I can;
I’ll move much faster when I’m a man . . .
Time unwinds
as the heart reels,
as cares and loss and grief plummet,
as faith unfailing ascends the summit
and heartache wheels
like a leaf in the wind.
Like a rickety cart wheel
time revolves through the yellow dust,
its creakiness revoking trust,
its years emblazoned in cold hard steel.
Keep Up!
Son, I’m walking as fast as I can;
take it easy on an old man.
Always
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy
Know in your heart that I love you as no other,
and that my love is eternal.
I keep the record of your hopes and dreams
in my heart like a journal,
and there are pages for you there that no one else can fill:
none one else, ever.
And there is a tie between us, more than blood,
that no one else can sever.
And if we’re ever parted,
please don’t be broken-hearted;
until we meet again on the far side of forever
and walk among those storied shining ways,
should we, for any reason, be apart,
still, I am with you ... always.
I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
—Theatetus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch