Poetry Days: New Father's Day

Husband wrote this in 1996 for his stepdad. (His dad died when Husband was 13 years old.) Dad's gone now; it made me smile to see his picture again.

The New Father's Day

I am slicing a new sea.
I have my bearings,
yet I desire still
some greater passion for life;
some freer, easier confidence;
a quicker smile, a wind-blown laugh.
These things will be woven into my sails,
thread by thread into who I really am.
I am strong and sleek and will be
a trespasser in wildest storms,
maybe no scintillating
and romantic wit,
but a chest of treasures,
a heart of gold.

I am on a new course, under a new star.

At birth my father wrapped me in his being.
I was comfortable and fond of all he was.
But a new father guides me now.
Strangely excited, I know
I am making a deep internal shift . . .
from being the child of the one,
to becoming the youth of the other;
from worrying about the wather,
to trusting in the ship.
This feeling fits.
Honest. solid. Unafraid.
I'm losing nothing in the trade.