Poem for My Dad

This week's poem is for my Dad.  I know that Dad in that sentence isn't usually capitalized, but, if you knew my Dad, even the Grammar Commando would let it slide. I simply can't think of my Dad without capital letters.

My Dad was the man who taught me to love poetry.  When I was a little girl, he would tuck me in at night with a prayer, a kiss, and a poem. 

If that seems idyllic, it was.  If it seems saccharine, it wasn't. 

He read me the poems he loved: The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Ballad of East and West, The Highwayman, Gunga Din, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A Child's Garden of Verse it was not, but I loved it!

The best part was this: he didn't just show me the vast treasure trove of poetry, he invited me to haul away as much loot as I could carry!  I could keep any poem I wanted, forever and always, as comfort, strength, and vision wherever I went. 

My Dad traveled all over the world with his rich store of poetry held where it could neither be stolen nor lost.  In many a strange place: starry desert, steamy jungle, craggy mountain, his last waking thought was, "Ah! Sleep it is a gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole."

So, for this Father's Day, my favorite poem from our favorite poet, the poem that invariably makes me think of my Dad:

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

HT: Poetry Foundation