Words for Father

Now you are ill, The body has broken down After the hot decades of labour Now is sudden time To rest with restless muscles, To close the eyes of responsibility.

Fate is not kind, Generosity made you no rich man, nor too much kindness a healer for heartbreaks. After the years, the hot sun Over the dry whitening head, The evenings that drained life out of you, The debts of duty, You are home, on a hard bed Out of sleep, when you need sleep most.

The sons and the daughters Are young, you have married late And we are young to an old father Me, I have pulled out my wet roots To follow a dry road The way home is a long lane Lost in the undergrowth. Home was not the kind of love I seek,
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Not knowing its doors or windows, Being left only with a fragmented past, Which unwise affairs broke Through the brittle centre I was too broken to care Though I know that not to care Was the sin of the rootless runner

Your eldest daughter married, She does not understand The web of male worries. The other children are too young to know Your circular chase of disappointment.

Now you are ill, the good God return you the breath of your youth For you have been born to be young, To stand and fight through the days And the rude elements. Sickness that lay you down Is your traitor in the blood. But father, it is time to rest now To close your eyes on the world, To feel the luxury of the holidays That you never took That have collected into one sickness.

Now that you are ill,

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Leave the worries to the young, The world id too difficult now, Too fast against the slow blood Of an old man Close your red eyes now And go to sleep. This illness will go with the heal. When you wake up We shall be around To see the youth in your eyes And body and voice.

Muhammad Haji Salleh