Poem on Sunday: Dad by Andrew Holden

Andrew Holden’s father experienced a work-related nervous breakdown in his 50s that profoundly changed him. Holden, who was a teenager at the time, spent years fearing he might one day become “the older dad,” before later coming to appreciate the man his father had been before his breakdown: “The great socialist who loved music in all its forms. The one who gave me so much more that I am only now beginning to appreciate.”

Dad

The legacy of dad remains

It pained me in my younger days

His blood still running through my veins

The arguments that hung like chains

around my life in many ways

The legacy of dad remains

Those memories of growing pains

A growing fear that with me stays

His blood still running through my veins

He mapped my life with his terrains

the path that leads me to malaise

The legacy of dad remains

But would I sing his sad refrains

that cursed me not to sing his praise

His blood still running through my veins

As bitter mem’ry slowly drains

a kinder sweeter man replays

The legacy of dad remains

His blood still running through my veins