OUR FATHERS

(Who We Become)

Words of our fathers teach us wisdom.

Beyond the times of read and write,

in oral tradition, they bestow on us

tenets and principles that guide our lives.

Ways of our Fathers pave our future,

their reputations precede our coming,

their honorable ways ensure our honor,

their courage and blessings lead us on.

Legacies of our fathers nurture our lives,

through trials and travails, life present

they carve a niche so that we might live,

and who we are is who they have been.

Memories of our fathers stay with us,

through the courses and the journeys of life

the father bestows who the child becomes

through tenets and cultures passed along.

Deep in us, they leave their mark, but

we on our own must find our ways,

to leave our footprints and gifts of life

in the lives of generations yet to come.

EPILOGUE:

For the father as the child soon returns,

and the child the father again becomes.

The fatherless may become the father never had,

as the fathered have become like the father had.

Oliver O. Mbamara ©(Poems of Spirits & Ancestors)

Oliver O. Mbamara is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, actor, and attorney. For more about Oliver O. Mbamara please visit www.OliverMbamara.com