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# To My Father
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/to-my-father/
- Published: 2022-06-19T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-06-19T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: A Hallmark holiday, as if one needs a staunch reminder of the role he played. He is long gone, but memories, like weeds, invade the well kempt garden that I've made of my adulthood. Where would I be now if not for poe...
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Sonnet, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

A Hallmark holiday, as if one needs  
a staunch reminder of the role he played.  
He is long gone, but memories, like weeds,  
invade the well kempt garden that I've made  
of my adulthood. Where would I be now  
if not for poems that he taught me as a child?  
Would freedom mean as much without the how?  
I grew up free. Free of the loathed, reviled  
regime that stole his youth, a Gulag camp.  
How can one thank for every sunny day,  
for a blue passport with a precious stamp,  
a title that reads, simply, U.S.A.  
For children that grew up without a fear.  
A happy day for me. I shed a tear.