Poetry?? - Father's Day - Duenda

This is from another site, written by an e-mail friend (who does write poetry).
He is a Camaldosese Oblate in a monastary in New England. Try this for Duenda.

faucon
..........................................................

A father's day thought yes,

i have a father who comes to mind today.
and that is rare as my days go;
his hammer thundered against my anvil for so long
my memory thickened with scar and emptied its contents.
and yet i love him to this day.
he was hard and selfish, thick and menacing,
loud,drunk and self indulgent;
but still, i love him.

i am safely away from him now
and it is not so dangerous to think these thoughts of love.
i would give anything to be his friend.
a tender word from him
would sear my heart and rip myflesh;
a kind gesture would stoke me like a furnace.
can i contemplate such things with an empty heart?

i love him because he taught me enduring hope;
with him, hope was gristle and bone.
it was my daily meal.
he was terrified of me from the moment i was born;
how could he tame his terrible brawn to mirror my tiny frame.
but he stayed until my bones were the size of his;
and then he ran to save my life.
he took all he had and ran like a thief in the night
to escape the murder that was in his heart.

i looked him in the eye and did not blink
and he ran so fearfulof my foolishness.
i love him for his own foolishness
that is also comfortable in my company;
he and i share a single heart
below the appearance of frame and skin.

he too could love a geranium or the first robin of spring;
he could extend his thick arms around a crowd
and roar with delight at any silliness;
e could push his body past numbness
with heavy work and not complain;
and he could admire the novel thought
and feel gratitude for its refreshment.

i love him and stand on his shoulders;
i never ran from my family,
and i learned the humility of love,
and found my children in me,
and held tight the warm hand of my spouse
that too often saw my father in my eyes.
i love him because i did not choose him;
he entered my life as a gift from God.
i tremble with the hard challenge he is to me
and i thank God that i endure.
if i lost my love for this hard soul
i would soften like a fallen quince.

love is hard. life is hard. the world is hard.
and soft flesh is too tender to match
to hammers of time and work.
i won't cast the first stone;
my own dark shadows stop my arm.
i am no more perfect that he was
and delusion arrives if i loose my love for him.
we must love each other exactly in our faults.
that is the first lesson of all faiths
and the hard reality of man.

i love my father because his horrors are no match
for what a child sees and a hungry heart feels.
and those things are eternal;
the gears of time cannot grind them down.
i love him because he is so hard to love;
and that is the mind of God working in my little world,
insignificant without the hard love required
in the dark of night, and the light of prayer.

i thank you, and i thunder back at you today
because you cannot run from my staring eyes.
nor i from yours.
we are two beautiful creatures
crippled by our own histories and deserving of each other.
i am as much a gift to you as you to me,
and i know you see that now.

you can't run; i can't hide.
and we meet at last as friends.your secret is out;
i know you love me, too.
there is no reason left to hide.

your son,

me