Father Gone Farther

Life is a lonely forest where you live, With your soul and sole tattered, Life and love denied, All for my sake, And father, farther you go. Like pressed above, you never grow taller, This way, in you go, Door gets too high and the way too wide, All for my sake, Yet the more you love me. To them your hair is foreign and rags so common, Though without salt and food, you always gave me full, I'm words without, withal to witness, The gentleness of your wonder without which I wither, You taught me all things, to write and erase. You're the shadow I shadow, The heart I material, I love because you love, You oriented me to life and gave me the first torch, Withal to grop in the darkness of life. Of pretentious popes you warned, Who would tell me tings obscene in coners sacred, To take your mantle I do, Your name to new seas, to focus and fight farther, Fight an equal fair, with each ear to the event, All will hear your shadow shaking sheaths, And feel the texture of the future in my hands, For your heart and mine is one, The love for you as you go farther, But you I take none, none at all. Please pick me for cushion, Plant your heart in mine, I know it was for my sake All the pain, I love you. Poem by Muthoka Jacob, June 2012.