Three fathers…

If I could, I would weep tears of loss
for the father I never knew.
Did he have a gentle heart,
the one who waited there that day
when I was whisked away to somewhere else?
Bereft by unexpressed love,
he asked her a simple question
as she waited to take me home.
“What is your name?” he said,
and heard the name his child would have.
He followed the rules that kept me a stranger,
but there are no written rules anymore,
just hindrances to my knowing
what he felt that day
when the child of his heart
became someone else’s property
because of the recklessness of youth.
I will know someday the man who watched me go
from that stark place, where lives begin and end,
into the weathered hands of another
who would love me as he longed to.
Now, three men await my going home–
the one who gave me life,
the one who gave me joy,
and the One who gave me peace.