From A Son Who Could Not Be His Father Poem by Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot

When I was young, you’d hold my hand
We’d swim the seas, explore the land
When ghouls and trolls would visit me
I’d call your name and they would flee
You’d carry me on your shoulders
I’d feel so tall above the earth
Proudly, I’d say when I grow up
I’d be like you, and you would clap

Silver would gather in your eyes
We’d embrace; how time really flies
Then you told me to go to school
To be like you- nobody’s fool
But my interests are different
I want to paint every event
Life’s exposed truths and hidden lies
I witness with my own two eyes

You love to talk, to entertain
With words you heal a world in pain
You are so good at what you do
But then I can’t really be you
I have no wish to disobey
I love you every time of day
I tried to be hard as I could
A rhetorician in your mold

I fear the crowd, its probing eyes
I don’t get Socrates and Marx
Van Gogh and Picasso I know
They’re men as great as your Rousseau
I think I’m just not meant to be
The copycat of somebody.
Let me pursue my hopes and dreams
Let me hum with the flowing streams

Let me go where the clouds travel
Life’s mysteries, I’ll unravel
Dance in the rain, fly with the wind
Talk to the hills, hear the bird sing
For while I may not be like you
I love humanity just as you do
Politics works to set them free
Just as art does, so let me be.