GRATITUDE

I never told my father
thank you; thank you
for the schools I chose
to hate, to which
he thought it best,
perhaps mistakenly,
to send me; thank you
for the love he knew
not how to show, nor
to express in simple words;
thank you for the faith
he struggled with himself
and chose to give me--
a gift that I perhaps
ungraciously rejected,
misunderstanding it
until long past his death;
thank you for the life
he gave me, in an act
of perhaps spontaneous,
perhaps mindless, perhaps
even purely selfish
self-release.  All this
I never before thought
to thank my father for,
but thank him now
in this too long neglected
simple act of gratitude.